Division 


Section  •A  43  7 C 


\ 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


CHILDREN  OF  THE 

WAY 

BY 

ANNE  C.  E.  ALLINSON 


NEW  YORK 

HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1923,  BY 
HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY,  INC, 


PRINTED  IN  THE  U.  S.  A.  BY 
THE  QUINN  a  BODEN  COMPANY 
RAHWAY.  N.  4. 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 
MY  MOTHER 

Anne  Crosby  Emery 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/childrenofwayOOalli 


For  me  the  charter  is  Jesus  Christ. 

Ignatius. 

Eow  did  Christianity  arise  and  spread 
abroad  among  men  f  Was  it  by  institutions, 
and  establishments,  and  well-arranged  sys¬ 
tems  of  mechanism?  Not  so.  .  .  .  It  arose  in 
the  mystic  deeps  of  men’s  souls ;  and  was 
spread  abroad  by  the  “ preaching  of  the 
word,”  by  simple  altogether  natural  and  in¬ 
dividual  efforts;  and  flew,  like  hallowed  fire, 
from  heart  to  heart. 


Thomas  Carlyle. 


Two  of  the  sketches  in  this  volume  have 
already  appeared  in  the  North  American  Re¬ 
view:  Almost  Thou  Persuadest  Me  and  (in 
its  original  form)  A  More  Excellent  Way. 
The  author  is  indebted  to  the  Editors  for 
permission  to  republish  them. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

A  Lively  Hope . 3 

The  Good  Shepherd . 31 

The  Day  Star . 47 

In  Their  Affliction . 61 

For  an  Helmet . 81 

Not  to  the  Flesh . 101 

Peaceable  Fruit . 125 

A  More  Excellent  Way . 149 

a 

Almost  Thou  Persuadest  Me  .  .  .  .169 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


A  LIVELY  HOPE 


i 

Nero,  the  reigning  Emperor,  in  nicked  traver¬ 
tine,  had  the  chance  that  March  afternoon  from 
his  corner  shelf  in  a  workman’s  living  room  to 
look  down  npon  a  happier  company  than  the 
master  of  Rome  in  person  was  ever  likely  to  see. 
Felix,  a  stone-cutter,  had  proudly  called  his 
relatives  and  friends  together  to  celebrate  the 
Name  Day  of  his  first  son,  born  eight  days  ago. 

But  since  no  new  pride  could  dispossess  his 

* 

little  daughter  Agatha,  five  years  older,  of  her 
place  in  his  heart,  he  made  the  occasion  into  a 
festa  for  both  children,  invoking  as  it  did  the 
benevolence  of  those  kindly  spirits  who  watched 
over  Roman  families  and  kept  the  members  of 
them  safe  and  united. 

Felix  belonged  to  the  upper  stratum  of  Ro¬ 
man  artisans,  and  was  able  to  rent  a  respectable 

3 


4  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

if  small  house  fairly  near  the  Forum,  in  the 
street  called  the  Argiletum,  where  many  book¬ 
sellers  and  also  shoemakers  had  their  shops. 
Both  he  and  his  wife,  Priscilla,  had  excellent 
family  traditions  harking  back  to  independent 
farms  in  the  country,  and  it  would  have  seemed 
a  calamity  to  them  to  live  in  one  of  the  tall, 
crowded,  dirty  tenement  buildings  which  housed 
so  many  of  Rome’s  poorer  workers.  Owing  to 
superior  intelligence  and  industry  in  a  re¬ 
munerative  trade  Felix  could  afford  the  rental 
of  a  whole  house,  boasting  a  modest  privacy,  in 
a  small  block  of  houses  in  a  decent  quarter, 
Each  house  had  the  conventional  if  small 
atrium ,  opening  on  the  street,  and  back  of  this 
a  peristyle  of  the  same  size,  with  four  tiny 
rooms  opening  off  from  the  corners.  Each  ves¬ 
tibule  in  the  little  block  was  flanked  by  book¬ 
shops,  and  many  a  time  Felix  used  to  linger  by 
the  open  counters  and  read  the  latest  publish¬ 
ers’  notices.  Indeed,  he  had  struck  up  rather 
an  intimate  friendship  with  Charinus,  the 
Greek  freedman,  who  handled  the  shop  on  the 


A  LIVELY  HOPE 


5 


right  of  his  own  door,  and  lived  in  a  tenement 
house  on  the  corner  above.  The  Greek  was  an 
omnivorous  reader  of  the  wares  he  sold,  and  an 
independent  and  skeptical  thinker.  Seneca  and 
Lucan — wrapped  in  their  social  and  literary 
prestige — would  have  been  amazed  if  they  had 
heard  the  caustic  opinions  of  themselves  that 
were  poured  into  the  ears  of  an  obscure  artisan 
by  an  obscure  retail  clerk.  But  this  afternoon 
even  Charinus  seemed  to  share  in  the  unsophis¬ 
ticated  cheer  and  good  will  of  his  friend’s  house¬ 
hold. 

It  was  owing  to  their  house  that  Felix  and 
Priscilla  were  able,  however  simply,  to  keep  up 
some  of  the  home  ceremonies  sanctioned  by 
many  generations  and  all  classes,  but  crowded 
out  of  the  life  of  the  really  poor  by  the  cramped 
squalor  of  their  surroundings.  There  was  even 
room  enough  for  this  gala  event  originating  in 
the  obligations  of  religion,  but  grown  warm  with 
the  associations  of  family  life.  Memories  of 
childhood  mellowed  the  hearts  of  those  who  had 
come  away  for  a  few  hours  from  the  tasks  and 


6  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

cares  of  burdened  lives,  and  a  child  seeing  it  all 
for  the  first  time  entered  unconsciously  into  the 
fold  of  family  traditions.  Agatha  had  watched 
the  preparations  with  wide-eyed  interest,  while 
the  atrium ■  was  being  scrupulously  cleaned  and 
adorned.  Her  Aunt  Clara  and  Cousin  Lydia 
had  come  in  to  help  Delia  who  was  taking  care 
of  the  house  while  her  mother  so  mysteriously 
stayed  in  bed.  The  stone  floor  had  been  washed. 
The  table  in  front  of  the  hearth,  where  the  fam¬ 
ily  always  ate,  had  been  spread  with  a  clean 
white  cloth  taken  from  the  old  chest  which  was 
opened  only  on  feast  days.  The  silver  salt¬ 
cellar  that  had  belonged  to  her  grandfather,  for 
whom  the  baby  was  to  be  named,  had  been  pol¬ 
ished  until  Agatha  could  see  the  end  of  her 
little  nose  in  it  and  placed  in  the  middle  of  the 
table,  while  around  it  were  set  pitchers  of  wine 
mixed  with  water  and  plates  of  honey  cake. 
Her  cousin  Lydia  had  brought  a  basketful  of 
gilly  flowers  and  lilies,  and  her  mother  herself 
had  come  from  her  room,  her  hair  bound  on  top 
with  ribbons  but  all  wavy  over  her  forehead,  to 


A  LIVELY  HOPE 


7 


make  a  lovely  wreath  to  lay  on  the  hearth  for 
Lar.  With  him  Agatha  felt  quite  intimate  be¬ 
cause  every  day,  before  she  and  “Tata”  and 
“Mama”  began  their  dinner,  she  said  aloud 
to  him  a  little  prayer. 

When  everything  was  ready,  aunts  and  un¬ 
cles  and  cousins  began  to  come,  and  various 
friends  of  whom  only  Victor  and  Philip,  her 
favorites  among  the  older  boys  of  the  neighbor¬ 
hood,  seemed  important  to  Agatha.  She  had 
been  on  tiptoe  with  happy  expectation,  but  at 
first  she  was  disappointed  and  almost  fright¬ 
ened  because  they  all  stood  about  solemnly  and 
talked  in  low  voices.  Her  mother  and  father 
seemed  far  away,  over  by  the  hearth  together, 
so  she  crept  closer  to  Philip  and  slipped  her 
hand  into  his.  Then  the  door  opened  and  Delia 
brought  in  the  baby.  His  funny  little  face  puck¬ 
ered  and  he  began  to  cry.  For  eight  days 
Agatha  had  wondered  how  so  big  a  cry  could 
come  out  of  so  little  a  head.  Tender-hearted, 
she  loved  the  baby  even  more  than  she  did  her 
pretty  caged  bird,  banished  to-day  to  the  inner 


8  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

room,  and  she  wanted  to  run  to  him  now.  But 
just  then  her  father,  with  the  kindest  smile, 
came  forward  and  gathered  him  away  from 
Delia  up  in  his  own  arms  against  his  shoulder. 
He  said  to  everybody,  4  4  This  is  Titus/  ’  and 
hung  around  his  neck  the  same  sort  of  little 
leather  case  that  Agatha  wore  herself — she  had 
been  told  that  it  was  to  protect  her  against  evil 
spirits.  Then  he  turned  toward  the  fire  and 
said  some  long  prayers.  Agatha  heard  vaguely 
names  she  had  herself  been  taught  to  use  in  her 
prayers  at  bedtime — Yaticanus,  of  the  child’s 
first  cry,  Fabulinus,  of  his  first  words,  Cuba 
who  soothes  his  cot,  Domiduca,  who  brings  him 
home.  Growing  very  tired  with  the  unintelligi¬ 
ble  weight  of  words,  she  leaned  more  heavily 
against  Philip  who  dropped  her  hand  and  put 
his  arm  restfully  around  her  back.  She  was 
drifting  cozily  oft  to  sleep  when  the  words 
stopped,  and  Philip  moved,  and  people  began 
to  laugh  and  talk,  and  Delia  and  Aunt  Clara 
stirred  busily  about  the  room. 

This  was  the  festa  that  Agatha  had  expected, 


A  LIVELY  HOPE  9 

with  smiling  faces  and  cheerful  sounds  and 
things  to  eat.  Almost  like  the  wine  and  sweet 
cakes,  she  herself  was  passed  about  from  guest 
to  guest,  lifted  up  in  strong  arms,  and  kissed 
and  teased  for  her  red  curls.  Every  one  who 
gave  the  baby  a  present  gave  her  one  too.  They 
were  mostly  fascinating  little  metal  figures  and 
Philip  said  he  would  string  them  together  in 
a  chain.  Her  father,  still  holding  his  son,  cud¬ 
dled  her  up  in  his  other  arm  and  called  her  his 
winsome  doll — blmda  pupa.  And  her  mother 
came  and  lifted  the  warm  hair  from  her  neck 
and  laid  her  cool,  smooth  cheek  against  hers. 

All  in  all  it  had  been  a  very  happy  afternoon, 
indeed,  and  when  it  was  over  the  house  seemed 
quiet  and  dull.  Felix  had  kissed  his  daughter 
good-bye  and  hurried  off,  late,  to  a  supper  at 
his  guild-hall.  Her  mother,  usually  so  satisfy¬ 
ing  a  playmate,  had  gone  back  to  her  bed-room, 
taking  the  baby  with  her.  The  house  door,  care¬ 
lessly  left  unlatched  by  the  last  departing  guest, 
suddenly  swung  open  under  the  March  wind, 
and  the  Roman  street  with  a  thousand  voices 


10  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

called  to  Agatha.  There  was  no  one  to  hinder 
her  from  running  out.  Even  Delia  had  stepped 
into  the  tiny  pantry  back  of  the  living  room. 
Lar  was  silent  above  the  hearth,  Nero  stared 
sardonically  from  his  shelf.  Agatha’s  eager 
feet  hurried  her  through  the  teasing  doorway, 
her  boyish  little  face  still  alive  with  the  excite¬ 
ment  of  the  afternoon,  her  bright  curls  aglint 
in  the  lingering  sunlight,  her  dimpled  arms 
clasping  close  a  new  terra-cotta  doll,  painted 
yellow,  which  Aunt  Clara  had  brought  her.  She 
had  never  been  out  before  without  her  father  or 
mother,  but  she  was  a  fearless  child,  with  a  high 
spirit  unusual  in  a  girl.  Strangers  often  took 
her  for  a  boy  in  her  straight  abbreviated  tunic, 
with  red  hair  cut  short  in  front  and  curling 
loose  at  the  nape  of  her  firm  white  neck. 

At  the  party  she  had  heard  Victor  and  Philip 
make  plans  for  a  game  of  “Odd  and  Even” 
after  Philip  had  gone  back  for  an  hour  to  the 
jewelry  shop  on  the  Via  Sacra  where  he  usually 
worked  all  day.  Utterly  ignorant  of  how  far 
this  Sacred  Way  was  from  her  father’s  house, 


A  LIVELY  HOPE 


11 


childishly  tempted  out  by  the  gaiety  of  the 
streets,  and  childishly  bent  on  finding  again  her 
adored  friends,  little  Agatha  strayed  oft  into 
the  power  of  the  heedless,  ruthless  metropolis. 
Where  was  Domiduca,  the  home-bringer? 


ii 

The  street  in  which  Agatha  lived  stretched 
down  past  the  beautiful  iEmilian  Basilica  where 
the  banks  were,  and,  entering  the  Forum,  met 
the  Via  Sacra  near  the  Temple  of  Janus,  whose 
doors  were  open — as  they  practically  always 
were — because  Rome  was  at  war.  Just  now  it 
was  with  the  Armenians  in  the  Far  East, 
and  every  now  and  then  a  company  of  dark- 
skinned,  unhappy  looking  captives  would  be 
marched  along  the  thoroughfares.  Philip  had 
seen  some  early  this  morning  when,  on  his  way 
to  work,  he  had  stopped,  as  he  often  did,  at  the 
corner  of  the  Basilica  to  look  up  at  the  splen¬ 
did  temple  of  Juno  on  the  Capitoline  Hill,  and 
the  gable  of  the  Senate  House.  Near  Agatha 


12  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

towered  the  greatness  of  Rome,  but  it  was 
powerless  to  protect  her,  nor  did  she  herself 
know  or  think  about  Juno  or  Senate.  Her  firm 
little  legs  were  still  far  too  short  to  carry  her 
more  than  a  block  beyond  her  father’s  house. 

Even  here,  well  above  the  Forum,  she  was  in 
a  dense  crowd  and  made  her  way  between  a 
motley  collection  of  human  legs.  It  was  the 
congested  period  of  the  late  afternoon  when 
rich  and  poor  alike  were  in  transit  from  their 
day  to  their  evening  life.  Now  and  then — for 
Romans  loved  children — -some  one  smiled  down 
at  the  bright  curls,  but  passed  on  without  no¬ 
ticing  that  the  child  was  alone.  To  her  own 
baby  eyes  and  ears  the  pageantry  of  the  Eternal 
City  was  a  gigantic  plaything.  Unvexed  by  the 
insolence  of  the  young  aristocrat  whose  litter 
was  jostling  pedestrians  to  right  and  left,  she 
was  enchanted  by  the  swing  of  his  scarlet  cloak. 
Untroubled  by  the  peddler’s  tattered  misery, 
she  loved  the  deep  rich  voice  in  which  he  kept 
offering  to  exchange  sulphur  matches  for 
broken  glass.  She  had  not  toddled  far  before 


A  LIVELY  HOPE 


18 


she  reached  the  corner  where  a  narrow  alley 
broke  into  the  Argiletum.  A  shoemaker’s  shop 
occupied  the  lower  floor  of  the  corner  building. 
To  an  upper  story  was  fastened  a  rough  shrine 
containing  a  little  wooden  image  of  Vulcan.  On 
the  side-walk,  just  where  street  and  alley  met, 
a  very  fat  man  was  selling  boiled  beans  and 
shouting  them  out  to  the  crowd.  A  very  thin 
man  was  stopping  to  buy  some,  and  a  dog  was 
looking  beseechingly  up  into  his  face. 

Agatha  loved  every  dog,  and  stopped,  in  de¬ 
light,  to  see  this  one.  He  was  so  thin  that  all 
his  bones  showed,  and  in  his  eyes  there  was  a 
look  of  patient  misery  which  reached  Agatha’s 
tender  heart,  without  her  knowing  why.  His 
master  had  the  same  look  in  his  face,  but  this 
Agatha  did  not  see.  While  he  was  exchanging 
a  small  coin  for  a  spoonful  of  beans  dumped  out 
on  a  dirty  piece  of  paper  she  ran  up  to  make 
friends  with  the  snifimg  animal. 

It  was  a  little  dog,  littler  than  she  was  her¬ 
self.  For  one  moment  they  met  as  friends  amid 
Rome’s  greatness.  The  next — so  sudden  are 


14  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

the  ways  of  destiny — they  became  victims  of 
Rome’s  cruelty.  A  snapping  big  dog  in  the 
street,  evoking  even  a  hungry  little  dog  to  com¬ 
bat,  Agatha’s  impulsive  and  protective  chase 
of  her  new  friend,  a  huge  wagon  of  marble  un¬ 
lawfully  rumbling  through  the  street  at  this 
early  hour  because  Pomponius  was  hurrying 
the  contractor  on  his  new  house  on  the  Esquiline 
— these  were  the  causes  of  the  tragedy.  Just 
what  happened  the  vender  of  beans  was  unable 
later  to  explain  to  Felix.  He  was  selling  beans 
to  a  wretched  looking  customer  when  he  heard 
the  snarling  of  dogs,  a  heavy  thud  of  falling 
marble  in  the  street — although  at  the  time  he 
didn’t  know  what  that  noise  was — and  then  a 
shriek  from  a  by-stander,  “the  child  is  killed.” 
He  and  the  ragged  customer  had  dashed  out 
and  picked  up  Agatha  and  the  man’s  dog — they 
were  lying  quite  close  together,  crushed  by  the 
same  piece  of  marble — it  was  a  reddish  piece, 
he  remembered,  with  prominent  gray  veins  in 
it.  A  crowd  collected  at  his  corner,  of  course, 
and  he  would  have  been  put  to  it  to  know  what 


A  LIVELY  HOPE 


15 


to  do  with  the  dead  body  of  an  unknown  child 
if  just  then  the  hoy  had  not  come  along — Felix 
knew  the  rest. 

The  boy  was  Philip,  returning  from  the  shop, 
and  it  was  he  who,  striving  pitifully  to  play  the 
man,  led  the  way  home  for  little  Agatha  at  the 
close  of  that  March  day. 

m 

For  the  poorest  in  Rome  the  tragedy  of  death 
was  deepened  by  promiscuous  burial  in  un¬ 
seemly  ditches,  made  like  huge  cisterns,  which 
outraged  every  traditional  feeling  about  the 
care  of  the  body  and  the  peace  of  the  dead. 
But  the  guild  to  which  Felix  belonged,  among 
its  other  mutual  services,  maintained  a  Colum¬ 
barium,  a  substitute  for  the  elaborate  funeral 
chambers  where  the  rich  from  generation  to 
generation  stored  the  ashes  of  family  and  de¬ 
pendents.  Here,  in  a  niche  apportioned  for 
Felix  and  his  wife  and  children,  the  ashes  of 
little  Agatha  were  placed  by  tender  hands.  Her 


16  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

father  with  his  own  chisel  cut  the  inscription  on 
the  stone  to  go  nnder  the  simple  nrn.  Beneath 
the  conventional  heading  “D.  M.” — Diis  Mani- 
bus,  to  the  Deified  Dead — he  seemed  to  cling  to 
the  charm  of  the  child’s  body  and  the  music  of 
her  lips  by  making  the  cold  stone  say  for  her : 

“  While  I  lived  I  played  and  was  loved  by 
everybody.  My  face  was  like  a  boy’s,  believe 
me,  not  like  a  girl’s.  Only  my  father  and 
mother  knew  that  I  was  Agatha.  I  had  red  hair 
cut  short  in  front  and  curling  loose  in  the  neck 
behind.  ’  ’ 

All  that  he  and  Priscilla  could  do  for  her  was 
over  and  finished  on  the  eve  of  the  Feast  of 
Minerva,  their  favorite  festival.  On  this  holi¬ 
day  they  had  first  met,  and  swiftly  fallen  in 
love  with  each  other,  answering  the  lead  of  the 
sweet  spring  weather  when  even  the  city  air 
caught  the  smell  of  hyacinths  and  daffodils. 
And  since  then  each  Nineteenth  of  March,  with 
its  wide-flung  public  festivities  in  honor  of  the 
patroness  of  all  arts  and  crafts,  the  “goddess 
of  a  thousand  works,”  had  seemed  to  celebrate 


A  LIVELY  HOPE 


17 


again  for  them  the  precious  happiness  of  their 
life  together.  Agatha  became  a  part  of  it  too, 
for  they  used  to  take  her  out  with  them  on  their 
holiday  expeditions.  Lifted  high  on  her  fa¬ 
ther’s  shoulder,  twining  her  arms  close  about 
his  neck,  she  would  kick  her  soft,  bare,  pink 
heels  against  his  breast  and  shake  her  red  curls 
in  excitement  over  the  gay  processions  and  the 
shouts  and  cheers  of  the  crowd. 

This  year  the  feast-day  spelled  only  desola¬ 
tion  for  Felix  and  Priscilla.  To  the  absorbing, 
if  tragic,  occupations  of  the  first  days  of  sor¬ 
row,  succeeded  the  full,  bitter  realization  of 
loss.  The  sky  wTas  over-cast  and  leaden,  the 
house  was  damp  and  cold.  Priscilla,  pretty, 
merry  Priscilla,  so  young  and  inexperienced  in 
trouble,  and  still  so  tired  and  weak  from  child¬ 
birth,  could  only  stay  in  bed  and  try,  for  her 
husband’s  sake,  to  stem  the  racking  outbursts 
of  tears.  Even  her  new  baby  failed  to  comfort 
her,  his  tiny  fingers  seeming  only  to  clutch  at 
her  poor  heart  with  memories  of  her  first-born 
and  first-beloved.  Felix  had  no  advantage  of 


18 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


her,  although  he  could  escape  when  evening 
came  from  the  mutilated  home  at  the  call  of  a 
public  obligation.  In  the  end  this  served  only 
to  reveal  further  the  absence  of  all  comfort. 

Felix  was  treasurer  of  his  guild  and  would 
be  expected  to  present  a  report  at  an  important 
meeting  always  held  on  the  Feast  of  Minerva. 
Usually  he  enjoyed  to  the  full  the  interest  and 
comradeship  to  be  found  in  these  gatherings. 
The  stone-cutters  belonged  to  the  more  intelli¬ 
gent  of  the  proletariat,  having  nothing  in  com¬ 
mon  with  the  slovenly  greed  of  those  who  could 
be  drugged  by  free  shows  and  free  doles  of 
bread  into  forgetfulness  of  their  rights  and 
proper  interests.  These  self-supporting  arti¬ 
sans  guarded  their  trade  up  to  the  limit  of  their 
power  and  often  meditated  on  rights  which  they 
could  not  obtain  under  the  imperial  government. 
A  few  among  them  were  radicals  and  agitators, 
at  least  whispering  behind  closed  doors  of  revo¬ 
lution.  But  the  larger  number,  of  whom  Felix 
was  one,  accepted  life  as  it  was  with  a  certain 
philosophic  calm  which  might  have  won  the  ad- 


A  LIVELY  HOPE  19 

miration  of  Seneca  if  lie  had  climbed  down  from 
the  heights  where  he  contemplated  “humanity” 
to  any  real  knowledge  of  the  common  people. 
Their  guilds  fed  their  self-respect,  uniting  hard¬ 
working  units  into  a  friendly  company  on  a  basis 
of  equality,  and  offering  in  the  administration 
of  common  affairs  a  certain  recompense  for 
their  insignificance  in  the  affairs  of  the  empire. 

The  large,  cheerful  guild-room  was  fairly  il¬ 
luminated  to-night  with  terra-cotta  lamps,  con¬ 
trasting  happily  with  the  cramped,  ill-lighted 
quarters  in  which  even  the  best  of  the  members 
lived.  The  supper  was  dressed  up  with  extra 
dishes  and  wine.  The  conversation  was  lively, 
with  broadsides  of  humor  to  suit  the  holiday 
mood.  Felix  was  praised  for  his  excellent  of¬ 
ficial  work,  and  treated  with  liking  and  sym¬ 
pathy  by  all.  But  none  of  this  brought  any 
comfort  to  him.  A  year  ago  he  would  not  have 
believed  that  the  comradeship  of  these  men 
could  leave  him  so  cold.  To-night  their  warm 
presence  gave  no  relief  whatever  to  his  longing 
for  a  little  child.  He  was  infinitely  relieved 


20  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

when  the  duties  and  the  empty  ‘ 4 pleasures’ ’  of 
the  evening  were  over  and  he  could  go  back 
again  to  his  broken  home. 

At  the  next  corner,  after  leaving  the  guild- 
room,  he  happened  to  meet  Charinus,  returning 
from  his  guild,  and  they  fell  into  step  together 
for  the  half  hour’s  walk.  If  anything  had  been 
lacking  to  complete  the  day’s  sense  of  despair, 
Felix  now  found  it  in  his  friend’s  mood.  The 
dangerously  narrow  streets,  always  noisy  after 
dark  with  the  heavy  carts  forbidden  by  day  and 
with  the  ordinary  brawling  of  the  great  city,  to¬ 
night  abandoned  themselves  to  the  unrestrained 
merrymaking  of  the  augmented  crowds.  If  sor¬ 
row  isolated  Felix  from  this  seething  hilarity, 
cynical  skepticism  did  the  same  for  Charinus. 
It  came  to  expression  near  the  doorway  of  his 
tenement  house,  as  they  dodged  a  roistering 
band  with  wagging  torches. 

“You  Romans  like  your  Minerva  drunk,”  he 
exclaimed.  “What  a  farce  this  whole  business 
of  religion  is!  Why  can’t  we  take  a  day  oft 
from  work,  or  celebrate  our  own  inventiveness, 


A  LIVELY  HOPE  21 

without  running  a  lot  of  Olympian  phantoms 
as  patrons?” 

Felix  quickly  laid  his  hand  on  Charinus’s  arm. 
“Hush,”  he  said,  “it’s  unlucky  to  say  a  thing 
like  that.”  Charinus  laughed  mockingly. 
“There  you  go,”  he  said,  “you  don’t  believe  in 
Minerva  any  more  than  I  do.  It’s  luck  you 
really  believe  in — Fate — Destiny.  Fate  starts 
us  living  here,  we  don’t  know  why,  snaps  us  oft 
again,  we  don’t  know  why.  Perhaps  it’s  the 
crowd  that’s  wise,  and  we  are  the  fools  to  keep 
sober  for  to-morrow’s  grind. 

“See  here,  Felix” — the  lust  of  talk  had  laid 
hold  of  the  Greek — “I’ve  been  wondering  about 
you  lately.  You’re  what  people  call  religious. 
You  keep  up  family  prayers  and  I  know  that  in 
your  guild  you  are  considered  quite  pious. 
Well,  what  good  does  it  do  you,  now  that  trouble 
comes?”  Not  deterred  by  Felix’s  silence,  he 
went  on,  with  rather  merciless  curiosity.  “Do 
you  remember  a  discussion  we  had  once  over 
immortality  after  I  had  been  reading  Seneca’s 
new  book?  You  had  never  questioned  your  in- 


22  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

herited  belief  before.  You  seemed  to  believe 
about  as  I  imagine  your  great-grandfather  did, 
that  there’s  a  world  of  shadows  somewhere  or 
other,  and  your  ancestors  live  there  and  have  to 
be  remembered  at  certain  times  in  a  deified  sort 
of  way.  It  struck  me  as  a  horrible  belief  com¬ 
pared  with  my  own  theory  of  annihilation. 
Well,  now,  Felix,  tell  me,  do  you  believe  your 
little  girl  is  in  a  black,  shadowy  world,  and  is  it 
any  comfort  to  you!” 

They  had  reached  Charinus’s  door  and  he 
suggested  that  Felix  should  come  in  and  “talk 
it  over” — conversation  was  as  good  as  wine  any 
day.  But  Felix  declined  with  the  excuse  that  his 
wife  would  be  lying  awake  until  he  should  come 
home.  Between  their  doors  lay  a  length  of 
street  almost  empty  now  of  pedestrians,  giving 
Felix  a  brief  solitude.  Rain  had  begun  to  fall, 
and  a  chill  seemed  to  fill  the  air  and  ooze  up 
out  of  the  pavement.  Cold  thoughts  lay  heavy 
on  his  mind.  Was  Charinus  right,  that  he  be¬ 
lieved  in  nothing  but  Fate?  He  tried  to  make 
real  to  himself  some  sort  of  a  belief  that  would 


A  LIVELY  HOPE 


23 


comfort  him  for  Agatha.  Nothing  materialized. 
He  tried  to  see  as  real  Minerva  in  his  guild, 
Jupiter  and  Juno  up  on  the  Capitoline  Hill,  Lar 
on  his  hearth.  He  tried  to  stare  bevond  the  lit- 
tie  niche  in  the  Columbarium  into  some  place 
where  Agatha  might  be.  Everywhere  he  found 
only  darkness,  ignorance.  All  he  was  sure  of, 
through  his  whole  being,  was  that  Agatha  was 
dead,  her  rosy  flesh  turned  to  ashes,  her  sweet 
voice  and  laughter  stricken  dumb,  her  loving 
ways  vanished  into  nothingness.  He  opened 
his  door  and  entered  the  small  atrium ,  dark  and 
cold  with  the  rain  splashing  through  the  open¬ 
ing  of  the  roof  into  the  stone  basin.  Faintly 
from  a  room  beyond  he  heard  Priscilla  sobbing. 


IV 

The  next  morning  F elix  rose  as  usual  before 
the  sun,  as  he  had  a  long  distance  to  walk  to 
his  shop  across  the  Tiber  and  the  Eoman  work¬ 
ing  day  began  early.  The  weather  had  cleared 
after  midnight,  and  the  luminous  dawn  presaged 


24  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

a  fair  day.  How  fair  it  was  to  be  for  Felix — so 
swift  are  the  ways  of  the  spirit — he  little 
dreamed.  Heavy-hearted  and  worn  from  a  rest¬ 
less  night  he  struck  across  the  Fornm  which  was 
already  busy  with  other  workmen  on  their  la¬ 
borious  ways,  and  with  irritable  dependents 
scurrying  to  the  morning  receptions  of  rich 
patrons.  He  was  on  the  bridge  across  the  Ti¬ 
ber  before  the  sun  rose  brilliantly,  flushing  with 
the  bloom  of  a  new  day  even  the  west  toward 
which  he  walked,  and  waking  the  east  to  a  splen¬ 
did  energy.  The  muddy  river  in  this  fresh  light 
smiled  to  its  stirring  traffic.  The  air  was  mag¬ 
ically  sweet  and  full  of  spring. 

When  Felix  reached  his  shop,  near  the  Trans- 
tiberine  end  of  the  bridge,  he  flung  open  the 
linen  curtains  and  let  the  air  blow  through  the 
room.  After  a  holiday  there  were  odds  and 
ends  to  attend  to  inside  before  he  should  go  to 
the  yard  with  his  own  chisel  and  distribute  work 
to  his  three  apprentices.  He  had  taken  down 
from  a  corner  cupboard  some  wax  tablets  of 
notes  and  settled  himself  at  his  desk  to  look 


A  LIVELY  HOPE 


25 


them  over,  when  an  early  cnstomer  arrived. 
Felix  worked  for  a  simple  clientele,  and  this 
man  was  no  exception.  He  wore  the  girt-up 
tnnic  and  conical  cap  of  a  working-man  and  car¬ 
ried  a  carpenter’s  kit  of  tools.  The  thing  about 
him  that  was  nnnsnal  and  caught  the  puzzled 
attention  of  Felix,  at  an  hour  when  most  men 
seemed  hurried  or  fretful,  was  an  air  of  deep 
serenity.  The  stone-cutter  was  almost  sur¬ 
prised  when  he  announced  the  same  gloomy  er¬ 
rand  that  brought  most  customers  to  the  shop. 
He  wanted,  he  said,  a  gravestone  cut  for  a  child, 
for  his  own  little  daughter,  in  fact.  He  spoke 
with  a  strange,  quieting  composure  which  con¬ 
veyed  an  impression  even  of  contentment,  as  if 
all  were  well  with  him  in  spite  of  his  errand. 
He  gave  his  name,  Lucius  Licinius,  and  his  ad¬ 
dress  near  the  Circus  Maximus,  though  he  was 
working  now  for  a  contractor  in  Nero’s  gardens 
this  side  of  the  Tiber.  Then  he  dictated  to 
F elix  the  inscription  which  he  wanted  cut. 
“No,”  he  said,  “please  omit  the  D.  M.  Just 
begin  with  the  child  saying, 


26 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


“  ‘I  lived  eight  years,  seven  months  and  five 
days’— -the  father  seemed  to  count  them  up 
afresh — -‘I  was  intelligent  beyond  my  years, 
lovely  to  look  at,  nicely  behaved,  and  I  had 
sweet,  caressing  ways  which  called  out  love.’  ” 
A  knife  seemed  to  cut  Felix,  but  his  customer 
went  on:  “Draw  a  line  under  that,  please,  and 
then  add,  ‘  Vives  in  Deo— thou  shalt  live  in  God 
— be  alive  in  God,’  ”  he  repeated,  as  if  to 
himself  as  well  as  to  Felix,  a  beautiful  cadence 
coming  into  his  quiet  voice.  Then  he  rose  to 
go,  leaving  Felix  amazed,  ensnared,  by  the  con¬ 
cluding  sentence  the  like  of  which  he  had  never 
been  asked  to  cut  before.  At  the  door,  before 
passing  out  to  the  street,  the  customer,  as  nat¬ 
urally  as  he  had  given  his  strange  order,  did 
another  strange  thing.  Flashing  back  a  smile, 
he  said:  “Good-bye,  brother.”  Had  he  felt,  in 
the  interchange  of  business,  a  stir  of  feeling 
from  the  stone-cutter  toward  himself?  After¬ 
wards,  when  the  two  men  had  become  closer 
than  many  brothers  and  talked  of  this  first  meet¬ 
ing,  he  said  simply  that  he  had  been  “led”  to 


A  LIVELY  HOPE  27 

speak  that  way.  At  any  rate,  his  surprising 
word,  breaking  through  every  barrier,  reached 
the  aching,  despairing  heart  of  Felix.  “Stop, 
please  stop,”  he  cried,  hurrying  forward,  “tell 
me  what  you  mean.  My  child  has  died  too. 
How  can  she  be  alive  ?  ’  ’ 

Into  the  face  of  Lucius  swept  a  look  of  illu¬ 
mination,  as  if  some  inner  light  were  pulsing 
outward.  He  dropped  his  tools  on  the  floor  and 
began  to  speak,  rapidly,  eagerly.  Felix  did  not 
follow  consciously  all  that  he  said.  Almost 
vaguely  he  heard  the  words,  “God,”  “Father,” 
“Love,”  “Goodness,”  “Eternal  Life,”  as  they 
struck  upon  his  unaccustomed  ears.  But  he 
was  spell-bound  by  the  man’s  extraordinary  and 
passionate  certitude.  When,  putting  his  hand 
on  Felix’s  shoulder  and  looking  straight  in  his 
eyes,  he  said  simply,  “I  know  that  our  children 
live,”  this  certitude  was  like  a  flame  leaping 
from  one  man’s  mind  and  heart  to  another’s, 
shriveling  perplexities  and  doubts,  setting  on 
fire  every  hidden  hope.  An  amazing  warmth 
penetrated  to  the  frozen  heart  of  Felix  and  nes- 


28  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

tied  there,  even  though  Lucius  stopped  abruptly 
and  stooped  down  for  his  tools.  The  iron  neces¬ 
sity  of  a  laborer  under  orders  was  evidently 
forcing  him  away.  As  he  lifted  his  kit,  he  said 
earnestly,  4  4  Brother,  I  have  much  to  tell  you. 
Let  me  come  back  after  hours  this  afternoon.” 
“Yes,  come,”  said  Felix,  “I  want  to  hear  you.” 

And  that  was  why,  before  the  darkness  fell 
on  that  March  afternoon,  Felix — as  he  used  to 
say  in  his  old  age — took  the  first  step  toward  a 
light  which  never  failed  him.  Through  the  day 
he  worked  as  one  in  a  dream,  beset  with  a  pre¬ 
monition  of  some  strange,  unimagined  good  for¬ 
tune  awaiting  him.  And  at  the  close,  he  and  his 
new  friend,  with  many  hours  of  scrupulous  work 
to  their  credit,  walked  and  talked  together.  In 
the  crowded,  raucous  city  streets  which  had  been 
so  heedless  of  Agatha  her  father  heard  the 
story  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  had  taken  from  death 
its  sting,  from  the  grave  its  victory.  Lucius 
had  had  it  from  his  brother-in-law,  Olius,  a  sol¬ 
dier  of  the  praetorian  guard,  and  he  had  had  it 
directly,  when  he  was  on  guard  duty,  from  an 


A  LIVELY  HOPE 


29 


extraordinary  government  prisoner,  named 
Panl,  who  preached  every  day  to  groups  of 
visitors.  Olins,  though  despising  the  Jews  and 
Greeks  who  crowded  in,  had  listened  first  be¬ 
cause  Paul  was  kind  and  thoughtful  toward 
him.  Lucius  had  listened  first  because  he  was 
told  that  the  Jesus  whom  this  Paul  preached 
was  a  carpenter.  And  now  Felix  was  listening 
because  Lucius,  on  the  word  of  this  same  car¬ 
penter,  asserted  that  Agatha  still  lived.  “I 
know  it  is  true,”  he  said  simply,  ‘ 4 because  Jesus 
Christ  has  conquered  death  and  promised  us 
eternal  life.” 

Clear  and  joyful,  the  words  seemed  to  ring 

through  the  hawking  cries  of  the  peddlers,  the 

whining  of  the  beggars,  the  sharp  warning  calls 

of  the  slaves  clearing  the  way  for  the  litters  of 

rich  men  on  their  wav  home  to  dinner.  As 

* 

Felix  listened,  he  did  not  know  which  he  wanted 
most — to  hear  his  new  friend  say  this  new,  mad, 
sweet  thing  over  and  over,  or  to  rush  home  and 
himself  say  it  to  the  mother  of  Agatha. 


THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD 


On  a  cold  cloudy  day  of  November,  in  the  late 
afternoon,  a  beggar  on  one  of  the  bridges  across 
the  Tiber  watched  the  passers-by  hungrily.  But 
he  did  not  seek  to  attract  their  attention  by 
droning  cries  for  alms.  If  any  one  had  stopped 
to  look,  he  would  have  read  despair  in  the  man’s 
eyes,  as  well  as  starvation  in  his  white  face  and 
abject  poverty  in  the  torn  remnants  of  leather 
that  hung  about  his  feet,  and  the  gaping  holes  in 
a  tunic  far  too  thin  to  be  a  protection  against 
the  wind  from  the  river.  But  no  one  did  look, 
and  Stephanus  tasted  to  the  bitter  dregs  the 
isolation  of  defeat. 

For  this,  indeed,  was  for  him  the  final  defeat, 
the  bottom  of  the  hill  down  which  he  had  been 
slipping  for  many  months.  More  than  a  year 
ago  he  had  left  his  native  village  of  Fori  Novi 
in  the  Sabine  hills,  cheerfully  sure  of  making 
his  way  in  Rome.  He  had  chafed  under  the 

31 


32 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


monotonous  meanness  of  the  little  village  whose 
livelihood  was  drawn  from  an  olive  orchard  or 
two,  a  bit  of  pasturage  for  sheep  and  goats,  and 
a  few  fields  of  grain.  His  own  family  raised 
the  fodder  for  the  animals  that  on  feast  days 
were  sacrificed  in  the  small  temple  in  the  public 
square.  In  Rome,  so  it  had  seemed  to  him,  it 
would  be  easy  enough  to  pick  up  a  first  job  in 
the  large  establishments  which  handled  fodder 
for  the  vast  numbers  of  animals  required  in  the 
religious  observances  of  the  metropolis.  From 
that  he  could  go  on  to  better  things. 

But  nothing  had  prospered.  He  did  not  seem 
to  know  how  to  deal  with  city  people.  His  su¬ 
periors  accused  him  of  losing  sales — he  never 
could  see  how.  At  any  rate  he  lost  one  position 
after  another.  The  small  store  of  money  he  had 
brought  with  him  from  home  steadily  dwindled. 
He  tramped  the  Forum  and  the  neighboring 
streets  for  work  and  found  none.  Having  lived 
at  first  in  a  respectable  lodging  house  in  the 
Argiletum,  on  the  advice  of  a  shoemaker’s  ap¬ 
prentice  who  had  relatives  in  Fori  Novi,  he 


THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD 


33 


ended  on  the  top  floor  of  the  poorest  of  the  poor 
tenements  near  the  Circus  Maximus.  Even  for 
this  miserable  room,  the  rent,  by  Fori  Novi 
standards,  was  terrifyingly  high.  He  could  af¬ 
ford  to  buy  only  the  coarsest  bread,  and  such 
oil  as  well-to-do  workmen  used  for  their  lamps. 
But  he  drenched  his  cheap  cabbage  in  it  and  his 
dog  licked  it  greedily.  Sometimes  he  could  af¬ 
ford  boiled  beans  or  peas  at  the  stand  on  the 
Argiletum  corner  under  the  shrine  of  Vulcan. 
But  he  had  never  gone  back  there  since  that 
dreadful  day  last  March  when  his  dog  had  been 
killed  by  a  piece  of  marble  shaken  from  a  pass¬ 
ing  wagon.  A  little  girl — such  a  lovely  child, 
with  red  curls — had  been  killed  at  the  same  time, 
but  the  crowd  had  closed  in  about  her  and  he 
had  had  no  heart  to  stay  to  hear  who  she  was. 
He  could  only  slip  away,  heartbroken  and  unno¬ 
ticed,  with  the  crushed  body  of  his  little  dog  in 
his  arms. 

After  the  death  of  Fidus  Stephanus  lost  even 
the  remnants  of  his  courage.  The  dog  had  come 
with  him  to  Rome,  the  only  part  of  Fori  Novi 


34  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

that  he  was  not  willing  to  leave  behind,  and  had 
become  the  one  companion  of  his  adversity. 
Fidus  never  loved  him  less  as  he  grew  poorer, 
never  worshiped  him  less  as  he  lost  the  respect 
of  other  men.  In  the  cruel,  indifferent  street 
he  always  had  a  little  comrade  at  his  heels.  In 
his  bleak  room  he  had  a  little  shaggy  body 
pressed  close  to  his  when  he  tried  to  sleep. 
Now  Stephanas  lost  his  hold.  On  the  few  pen¬ 
nies  which  he  occasionally  earned  he  ate  less 
and  drank  more.  The  cheapest  wine  had  at 
least  warmed  him  a  little,  made  him  sleep,  made 
him  forget.  There  was  no  one  to  care  what  hap¬ 
pened  to  him.  His  father  and  mother  were  long 
since  dead,  he  had  broken  with  his  brothers  on 
leaving  his  native  village.  Stray  acquaintances 
in  the  city  had  not  tried  to  keep  track  of  him,  as 
he  went  from  lodging  to  poorer  lodging.  In  this 
last  wretched  tenement  everybody  was  too  ab¬ 
sorbed  in  his  own  squalid  struggle  for  existence 
to  notice  one  more  derelict.  For  Stephanus 
there  seemed  left  only  such  forgetfulness  as  he 
could  drain  from  a  cup. 


THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD 


35 


To-day  marked  the  lowest  stage.  Without  a 
penny  left  he  was  willing  to  beg  that  he  might 
be  drunk.  He  had  come  to  the  bridge  at  a  time 
when  the  occupations  of  the  day  were  breaking 
up  and  crowds  from  both  quarters  of  the  city 
were  moving  back  and  forth  across  the  Tiber. 
Cold  and  weak,  with  no  power  of  initiative, 
Stephanus  watched  them.  Workers,  chiefly,  or 
those  who  preyed  on  any  crowd,  were  abroad  at 
this  hour.  There  were  boatmen  and  lightermen 
coming  from  their  occupations  on  the  river  to 
seek  the  evening  taverns.  There  were  farmers 
and  dyers,  and  stone-cutters  streaming  home 
from  their  Transtiberine  shops.  Scavengers 
and  beggars  and  vagabonds  roamed  at  will. 
And  Jews  from  the  neighboring  Ghetto  took  the 
opportunity  to  hawk  about  for  sale  the  old  hats 
and  shoes  they  had  collected  during  the  day. 

It  was  just  after  Stephanus  had  feebly  re¬ 
pulsed  one  of  these  peddlers  who  had  noticed 
his  bootless  condition  that  he  saw  suddenly  in 
the  crowd  an  old  neighbor  from  Fori  Novi.  It 
was  Justus,  the  most  successful  man  of  the  vil- 


36 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


lage,  a  goat  owner  who  sold  skins  through  the 
country-side  and  even  once  a  month  carried  a 
supply  to  Rome.  How  prosperous  he  looked, 
with  his  long,  thick  cape  gathered  close  about 
him,  and  his  head  and  ears  protected  by  a  com¬ 
fortable  hood!  Earlier  in  the  autumn  Stepha- 
nus  had  recklessly  bartered  his  good  country 
paenula  for  a  pot  of  wine. 

Justus’s  neighbors  had  always  considered  his 
name  an  appropriate  one,  for  he  was  conspicu¬ 
ously  just  and  honest  in  all  his  dealings.  But 
he  had  little  patience  with  weakness  or  failure, 
judging  others  by  the  one  standard  of  success¬ 
ful  diligence.  There  suddenly  flashed  upon 
Stephanus,  through  all  his  sodden  misery,  a  pic¬ 
ture  of  Justus  as  he  had  seen  him  once,  rebuk¬ 
ing  a  goatherd.  He  had  come  upon  the  two  men 
in  the  olive  orchard  on  the  slope  of  the  hill  to 
the  south  of  the  village.  The  shepherd  was 
climbing  up  from  the  valley,  worn  and  tired, 
with  an  ailing  kid  across  his  shoulder.  Justus 
had  stopped  him  and  told  him  sharply  what  a 
fool  he  was  to  waste  his  strength  over  an  ani- 


THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  37 

mal  which  was  sure  to  die.  Then,  walking  on 
with  Stephanus,  he  had  talked  contemptuously 
of  the  lack  of  sense  displayed  by  the  clowns  who 
worked  for  him.  Now  through  the  November 
gloom  Stephanus  saw  again  the  silvery  green  of 
the  olive  orchard  and  the  lacey  clouds  of  May 
so  unlike  the  harsh  mood  of  Justus.  At  the 
time  he  had  been  indifferent,  but  now  that  cold 
voice,  impatient  with  weakness  in  any  form,  cut 
through  his  mere  physical  misery  and  stupor  to 
the  vital  place  where  some  shred  of  self-respect 
had  still  been  left. 

Justus  passed  on,  leaving  him  to  the  deadly 
assault  of  shame.  No  longer  could  wine  have 
offered  him  any  comfort.  He  wanted  a  deeper 
forgetfulness.  It  would  take  but  a  minute  to 
plunge  into  the  river  there  below.  When  the 
ripples  had  closed  over  his  head,  no  mark  what¬ 
ever  from  his  poor  existence  would  be  left  upon 
the  life  around  him.  He  moved  nearer  to  the 
coping  of  the  bridge  and  bent  over  as  if  listen¬ 
ing  to  a  call  from  the  muddy  waters. 

Just  at  that  moment,  he  felt  a  hand  on  his 


38 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


arm,  and  heard  a  warm  voice  saying  cheerfully, 
“ Brother,  come  with  me.”  He  looked  up  in 
amazement  to  find  near  him  a  young  man,  a 
stone-cutter  to  judge  from  the  kit  of  tools  he 
carried,  with  smiling,  shining,  brown  eyes  and 
a  persuasive  sweetness  lingering  on  the  lips  that 
had  spoken  such  friendly  words.  The  young 
man  slipped  his  arm  through  his,  turning  him 
gently  into  line  with  the  stream  of  people  pour¬ 
ing  eastward.  “It  is  so  cold,”  he  said,  “and 
you  haven’t  a  cloak  on.  You  look  tired,  and  I 
have  an  idea  that  you  have  not  eaten  for  some 
time.  I  am  just  on  my  way  to  a  house  where 
there  will  be  a  fire  and  food  and  a  chance  to 
rest.  You  will  be  most  welcome.  Do  keep  me 
company.  I  shall  enjoy  it  more  if  you  come 
too.” 

Stephanus  had  neither  the  power  nor  the  wish 
to  resent  this  gentle  urging.  Almost  as  Fidus 
used  to  follow  him,  he  followed  this  stranger, 
without  questioning  the  mastery. 

Just  after  they  came  off  the  bridge,  the 
stranger  turned  abruptly  to  the  right  into  a 


THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD 


39 


street  occupied  by  comfortable  looking  shops 
and  houses.  Even  though  the  houses  were  in 
blocks  of  two  or  three  together  they  were  fairly 
large.  At  one  of  them  the  stranger  knocked 
and  almost  immediately  the  door  opened  wide 
and  hospitably.  A  young  boy,  acting  as  porter, 
smiled  happily  when  Stephanus ’s  new  friend 
patted  his  shoulder.  They  passed  through  a 
vestibule  into  a  large  living  room,  and  a  middle- 
aged  man,  short  and  thick-set,  hurried  forward 
to  meet  them.  “  Felix/  ’  he  said,  putting  out 
both  hands,  “it  is  good  to  see  you  to-night,” 
and  then  before  Felix  could  speak,  he  held  out 
his  hand  cordially  to  Stephanus.  “And  you 
too,  brother,”  he  said,  “are  very  welcome  in  my 
house.” 

Felix,  addressing  his  host  as  Narcissus,  ex¬ 
plained  very  simply  that  he  had  found  Stepha¬ 
nus  alone  on  the  bridge  and  ventured  to  bring 
him  where  he  could  find  warmth  and  food. 
Stephanus  himself  was  in  a  dream,  so  many 
comforting  things  were  happening  to  him.  At 
a  magic  nod  from  his  host,  the  friendly  boy  came 


40  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

from  tlie  door  and  took  him  into  an  inner  room 
and  presently  brought  him  a  jar  of  hot  water, 
together  with  a  clean  tunic  and  a  whole  pair  of 
shoes,  helping  his  trembling  hands  to  put  them 
on.  A  pitcher  of  hot  milk  and  a  plate  of  bread 
followed,  and  he  was  asked  to  come  back  into 
the  living  room  when  he  had  finished  eating. 

When,  clean  and  steady  on  his  legs  again,  he 
entered  the  atrium ,  he  found  a  group  of  perhaps 
a  dozen  men  and  women,  young  and  old,  gath¬ 
ered  about  the  host,  greeting  each  other  as  if  to 
meet  in  this  house  in  this  way  were  a  delightful 
thing.  Stephanus  was  waking  from  his  dream 
with  restored  perceptions.  He  wondered  what 
holiday  this  was  or  what  family  festival. 
Everybody  seemed  full  of  cheerfulness  and  even 
of  joy.  At  first,  as  nobody  noticed  his  entrance 
into  the  room,  he  stood  alone  for  a  moment 
watching  their  lively  faces  and  thinking  that 
they  must  be  a  large  family  connected  by  close 
ties  of  blood.  As  he  caught  a  sentence  here  and 
there  from  their  conversation,  he  felt  that  they 
shared  together  the  knowledge  of  some  happy 


THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  41 

event.  He  heard  the  name  “Paul”  often,  as  if 
everybody  had  seen  him  lately  or  was  about  to 
see  him.  He  wondered  if  this  Paul  had  inherited 
a  fortune.  He  heard  one  man  say  to  another, 
“I  have  hardly  been  able  to  wait  to  see  you.  It 
is  all  true.  He  gave  me  the  most  wonderful 
proof  of  it  yesterday,”  and  then  excitedly  they 
walked  off  together  into  a  corner  of  the  room. 
As  their  movement  revealed  Stephanus  stand¬ 
ing  back  of  them,  a  lovely  woman  with  dark  hair 
parted  over  a  low  brow  and  eyes  full  of  sweet¬ 
ness  came  forward  at  once,  holding  out  her 
hand  to  Stephanus.  “I  am  Persis,”  she  said, 
“the  sister  of  Narcissus.  We  are  always  so 
happy  when  a  stranger  comes  to  us.  He  tells 
me  that  he  wants  you  to  spend  the  night  here  in 
the  room  where  you  have  been  changing  your 
clothes.  You  will  do  it,  won’t  you,  and  you  will 
come  first  into  our  meeting?”  “Meeting,” 
Stephanus  said,  dully,  “what  sort  of  a  meet¬ 
ing  f  ”  “  Oh,  ’  ’  said  Persis, i  1 1  thought  that  Felix 
had  probably  told  you.  Once  a  week  we  have  a 
meeting  to  talk  about  Jesus  Christ.”  “Jesus 


42 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


Christ/  ’  repeated  Stephanus,  once  more  per¬ 
plexed  and  lost  in  this  strange  company.  6 1  Who 
is  he?”  “Come  in  here,”  said  Persis,  putting 
her  hand  on  his  arm  and  leading  him  in  the 
wake  of  the  others  toward  an  inner  room  be¬ 
yond  the  living  room. 

Modest  as  the  house  really  was,  Stephanus 
had  never  seen  one  so  large.  The  atrium,  where 
they  had  been  standing  near  the  generous  open 
hearth,  ran  back  into  another  room  more  se¬ 
cluded  and  private.  Here  seats  were  placed  for 
about  twenty  people.  A  few  simple  terra-cotta 
lamps  lighted  the  room  in  a  quiet,  subdued  way. 
A  larger  lamp  on  a  high  standard  stood  by  one 
of  the  wall  spaces.  On  this  wall  was  painted 
a  picture,  and  Stephanus  saw  Felix  step  aside 
from  the  others  and  go  up  and  stand  in  front 
of  it,  as  if  seeing  with  pleasure  a  familiar  ob¬ 
ject. 

“Come  and  see  the  picture,”  Persis  said. 
And  when  Stephanus  reached  the  side  of  Felix, 
he  saw  on  the  wall  the  figure  of  a  shepherd  hold¬ 
ing  a  kid  across  his  shoulder.  The  picture  was 


THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  43 

i 

rudely  enough  drawn  and  colored,  but  that 
Stephanus  did  not  notice.  To  him  the  figure 
seemed  very  real,  and  a  lump  came  into  his 
throat  as  his  mind  flew  back  to  Fori  Novi.  Felix 
turned  with  a  smile.  “I  used  to  see  the  shep¬ 
herds  so  often  that  way  at  my  grandfather's,” 
he  said,  “bringing  in  the  lost  kids  and  lambs  or 
the  weak  and  sickly  ones.  Do  you  know  any¬ 
thing  about  farm  life?”  he  went  on.  “Yes,” 
said  Stephanus,  “I  come  from  the  country  and 
my  business  used  to  be  raising  the  fodder  for 
the  sacrificial  animals.  There  was  a  man  in  my 
village  who  had  big  flocks  of  goats,  but  he 
wouldn't  allow  his  men  to  waste  any  time  over 
the  sickly  and  worthless.”  “This  is  the  Good 
Shepherd,”  Felix  said  simply,  holding  out  his 
hand  toward  the  rude  picture.  “He  picks  up 
and  carries  himself  the  kid  that  is  weakest. 
And,  brother,”  he  added  quickly,  “he  never 
wanted  animals  sacrificed  on  an  altar.  He  only 
wants  our  own  bodies  and  hearts  used  rightly 
as  a  sacrifice  to  God.” 

Other  men  and  women  were  still  coming  into 


44 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


the  room,  so  that  the  promised  meeting  had  not 
yet  begun.  The  cheerful  hum  of  their  voices 
as  they  greeted  each  other  made  it  possible  for 
Felix  and  Stephanus  to  talk  together  without 
being  heard.  Stephanus  found  the  things  that 
Felix  was  saying  too  incomprehensible  to  an¬ 
swer.  But,  feeling  toward  him  an  impulse  of 
confidence  because  of  his  kindness,  he  said,  “I 
never  had  any  special  feeling  for  flocks  and 
herds,  but  I  loved  my  dog  very  much.  He  was 
killed  in  the  Argiletum  last  March.  Such  a  little 
fellow,’ ’  he  added  with  a  catch  in  his  throat, 
“the  only  friend  I  had  left.”  Felix  turned 
quickly.  “Tell  me,”  he  said  abruptly,  “were 
you  buying  beans  that  day  at  the  stand  by  the 
shoemaker’s  under  the  shrine  of  Vulcan?  Did 
you  see  a  little  red-haired  girl  run  out  in  the 
street  after  your  dog?  Were  they  struck  to¬ 
gether  by  a  piece  of  marble?”  “Yes,”  Steph¬ 
anus  said  hoarsely.  A  strangely  still  look  came 
over  the  face  of  Felix.  He  put  both  hands  on 
the  other  man’s  shoulders  and  said  to  him  very 
gently,  “The  child  was  mine.  I  was  in  great 


THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  45 

darkness  after  I  lost  her.  Then  the  light  came 
to  me  and  I  learned  to  know  that  Jesns  Christ 
has  conquered  death.  I  am  sure  that  it  was 
meant  that  you  and  I  should  meet  sometime. 
My  little  girl  loved  everything  that  was  weaker 
than  herself,  and  I  think  that  she  was  trying  to 
save  your  dog  when  she  ran  out  into  the  street. 
For  her  sake,  will  you  come  and  sit  beside  me 
now  and  open  your  ears  and  let  the  seed  that 
falls  to-night  find  a  good  soil  in  your  heart  V9 

There  was  no  time  for  Stephanus  to  answer, 
for  a  quiet  hush  fell  upon  the  room.  The  two 
men  slipped  into  chairs  near  the  picture  of  the 
Good  Shepherd,  and  Narcissus  rose  to  speak  to 
the  little  group  of  eager  listeners. 

Later  Stephanus  understood  that  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  himself,  a  stranger  among  them,  led 
Narcissus  to  speak  as  he  did  about  certain 
things  which  the  rest  might  have  taken  for 
granted.  At  the  time  he  was  simply  drawn  as 
if  by  an  invisible  tide  toward  the  story  of  Jesus 
Christ,  who  had  worked  with  his  hands  as  a  car¬ 
penter,  who  had  believed  that  men  should  live 


46  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

together  like  brothers  and  friends,  who  had  not 
been  nearer  to  emperors  and  senators  than  were 
any  of  them  sitting  there  in  that  room,  who 
had  come  to  fonnd  a  Kingdom  of  God  in  which 
the  poor  were  as  important  as  the  rich,  the  weak 
as  welcome  as  the  strong,  who  had  come  to  raise 
men  up  just  when  they  were  lowest. 

As  Stephanns  listened,  an  amazing  thing  be¬ 
fell  him.  It  was  as  if  a  secret  door  opened  in 
his  heart,  and  there  walked  in  a  companion  who 
wonld  never  desert  him,  who  cared  supremely 
whether  he  fared  well  or  ill,  whether  he  did 
right  or  wrong.  He  understood  these  men  and 
women  around  him  because  they  had  the  same 
friend.  For  love  of  this  friend  they  had  wel¬ 
comed  him  and  warmed  him  and  clothed  him  and 
fed  him.  He  could  never  despair  again  because 
never  again  would  he  be  alone  in  defeat.  Hope 
for  to-morrow  began  to  flood  in  upon  his  arid 
will.  If  he  had  been  like  a  crippled  kid,  at  least 
now  his  limbs  would  heal  and  strengthen.  His 
manhood  rose  to  meet  the  new  value  of  his  life. 
He  had  been  sought  by  Jesus  Christ. 


THE  DAY  STAR 


Philip  was  the  son  of  a  shoemaker  living  in  a 
large  tenement  house  a  few  blocks  above  Felix 
and  Priscilla,  and,  at  twelve,  was  the  oldest  of 
ten  children.  His  name  came  from  his  paternal 
grandfather  who  had  been  a  Greek  freedman. 
From  him  also  perhaps  the  boy  had  inherited  his 
quick  intelligence  and  sensitive  perceptions. 
On  his  mother’s  side  he  was  all  Roman,  with  a 
bent  toward  conscientiousness  and  industry 
He  was  a  favorite  with  Dento,  the  fashionable 
pearl  merchant  on  the  Via  Sacra,  in  whose  shop 
he  had  already  for  a  year  been  setting  stones 
with  conspicuous  skill.  Because  of  the  steadily 
increasing  brood  of  brothers  and  sisters  he  had 
been  forced  out  to  work  very  early.  His  father 
and  mother,  care-worn  and  absorbed  in  making 
both  ends  meet,  had  little  time  for  the  softer 
ways  of  affection.  Of  home  life  the  children 
knew  nothing,  crowded  into  two  poor  rooms,  on 


48  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

the  eighth  floor  of  the  huge  tenement.  Shelter 
and  food  and  clothing,  even  of  the  scantiest, 
were  the  sole  objects  of  endeavor.  Philip  might 
never  have  known  his  more  prosperous  neigh¬ 
bors,  if  Charinus,  the  Greek  bookseller,  who 
had  a  decent  bachelor’s  room  on  the  second 
floor  of  the  same  tenement,  had  not  singled  him 
out  for  attention  and  introduced  him  to  Felix’s 
household.  Little  Agatha  at  once,  with  a  child’s 
swift  instinct,  had  attached  herself  to  the  boy, 
and  he  in  turn  utterly  capitulated  to  her  con¬ 
fidence  and  baby  charms.  In  her  house  and 
with  her  father  and  mother  he  found  the  home 
for  which  unconsciously  his  young  heart  was 
starving. 

Agatha’s  death,  and  his  discovery  of  her 
broken  little  body  in  the  arms  of  a  stranger  in 
a  strange  crowd  had  been  a  shock  to  his  whole 
nature.  Grief  and  horror  mingled  in  his 
thoughts.  At  night  he  had  terrible  dreams ;  by 
day,  without  knowing  it,  he  became  the  prey 
of  all  the  destructive  impressions  which  lurked 
in  his  harsh  routine.  Before  sunrise  he  had  to 


THE  DAY  STAR  49 

crawl  out  of  the  bed  he  shared  wTith  three 
younger  brothers,  snatch  a  piece  of  dry  bread  to 
eat  on  his  way,  and  plunge  into  the  greedy  com¬ 
pany  of  those  who  were  setting  in  motion  an¬ 
other  day’s  life  for  the  great  city.  Bakers  call¬ 
ing  out  their  fresh  loaves,  loud-mouthed  shep¬ 
herds,  in  from  the  country,  peddling  their  goat’s 
milk,  sausage-sellers  opening  up  their  smoking 
corner  stands,  butchers  hurrying  along  with 
quarters  of  beef  and  raw,  disgusting  guts  and 
lungs — all  were  screaming  and  struggling  to  get 
ahead  of  everybody  else,  to  be  the  first  to  mulct 
the  early  purses.  When  he  reached  the  upper 
ridge  of  the  Via  Sacra,  where  the  more  elegant 
shops  were  situated,  the  preparations  were  as 
jealous  if  less  noisy.  On  Dento’s  side  of  the 
street  the  jewelers  and  goldsmiths,  on  the  op¬ 
posite  side  the  florists  and  perfumers  were  set¬ 
ting  out  their  luxurious  wares.  Dento’s  cynical, 
if  good-humored,  materialism  pervaded  his 
shop.  Pearls  from  the  islands  of  strange  seas, 
emeralds  from  northern  mountains,  all  the  shin¬ 
ing  gems  from  far-off  Asia  were  valued  only  in 


50 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


so  far  as  they  might  extract  money  from  the 
rich,  who,  in  their  turn,  seemed  oftenest  to  buy 
for  the  sake  of  display.  Dento’s  fashionable 
customers  seemed  to  Philip  to  have  faces  and 
voices  and  manners  as  hard  as  the  coins  they 
bartered  for  the  jewels  which  he  found  so  beau¬ 
tiful.  His  delight  in  the  materials  which  he 
handled  had  to  be  concealed  from  the  ruder 
commercial  touch  of  his  fellow-workers.  At 
night,  tired  and  depressed,  he  avoided  Victor 
and  the  other  boys,  saw  Agatha’s  little  white 
bleeding  face  at  every  dusky  corner,  and  at  home 
crawled  into  bed,  after  a  supper  of  coarse  por¬ 
ridge,  to  wake  fitfully  at  the  passing  of  the  rum¬ 
bling  wagons. 

Of  Felix  and  Priscilla  in  these  months  Philip 
saw  very  little.  At  first  they  had  tried  to  keep 
kind  hands  stretched  out  to  him,  but  in  his 
bruised  alienation  from  all  his  usual  life  he  fell 
apart  from  them  also.  When  he  had  chanced 
to  see  them,  through  the  spring  and  summer, 
he  found  in  them  a  mysterious  serenity.  It  al¬ 
most  angered  him  that  they  were  not  more 


THE  DAY  STAR 


51 


broken  by  Agatha’s  death.  And  yet  he  conld 
not  but  sensitively  respond  to  a  new  beauty  in 
Priscilla.  He  had  always  loved  her  sparkling 
face  and  wavy  hair  and  cordial,  pretty  ways. 
Now  he  recognized,  without  understanding,  a 
new  and  deeper  kindness. 

Perhaps  this  drew  him,  as  it  drew  many  who 
needed  a  gentle  ministry.  Priscilla  could  not 
go  about  much  because  of  her  baby,  but  day  by 
day  she  grew  lovelier  in  her  own  home  and 
among  her  friends  and  neighbors.  At  any  rate, 
when  November  came,  and  a  problem  pressed 
hard  upon  young  Philip,  he  came  straight  to 
the  only  home  he  had  known.  It  was  after 
supper,  and  he  found  Felix  gone.  No,  Pris¬ 
cilla  explained,  it  was  not  a  guild  night,  he  had 
gone  to  another  kind  of  meeting  with  some  new 
friends — she  would  have  gone  too,  but  had  not 
been  able  to  get  Delia  to  stay  with  the  baby, 
and  now  she  was  glad  she  had  been  kept  at 
home  if  she  was  to  have  Philip  all  to  herself. 
The  sweetness  of  her  manner  lured  Philip  into 
confidence.  He  began  to  tell  her  how  his  father 


52 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


was  ordering  him  to  find  evening  work,  they 
were  so  poor  and  the  winter  was  going  to  be  a 
hard  one,  and  he  didn’t  know  where  to  look  for 
a  job,  and  that  very  night  the  littlest  children 
had  been  hungry — and —  But  the  boy  was 
very  tired,  and  suddenly  hurst  into  nervous 
tears.  He  flung  his  arms  across  the  table  and 
put  his  head  down  on  them.  Priscilla  heard 
him  say,  “I  don’t  see  how  you  bear  it,  I  don’t 
see  how  you  bear  it.”  She  knew  that  his  very 
confidence  in  her  had  brought  a  sudden  thought 
of  Agatha — Agatha  wrho  was  always  nestling  in 
her  own  thoughts  and  love.  She  sat  in  silence 
until  his  sobs  stopped  shaking  him.  Then  she 
went  and  brought  a  bowl  of  water  and  cooled 
her  hand  and  put  it  on  his  neck  close  up  under 
his  black  curls,  and  lifted  his  face  from  his 
arms,  and  softly  stroked  his  forehead  where  it 
ached  so  above  his  eyes. 

Then  she  talked  to  him  in  her  sweet,  soft 
voice.  She  told  him  the  story  of  Jesus  Christ 
who  made  it  certain  that  Agatha  still  lived,  and 
whose  love  could  help  each  one  of  them  to  be 


THE  DAY  STAR  53 

brave  and  patient.  And  as  Philip  listened  he 
felt  rested  and  happy,  as  he  did  some  days  in  the 
spring  when  the  city  fountains  began  to  play 
again,  and  the  water  leaped  and  sparkled  like 
crystals  in  the  sun,  and  on  the  marble  balus¬ 
trades  were  heaped  up  great  mounds  of  sweet¬ 
smelling  violets  and  roses. 

Then  Felix  came  home  and  was  so  kind  and 
strong.  Priscilla  stretched  out  her  hand  to 
draw  him  close  and  said  simply,  “We  were  talk¬ 
ing  of  Jesus  Christ,”  and  he  slipped  his  arm 
around  her  shoulder  and  smiled  at  Philip  and 
said,  “Believe  all  she  tells  you,  my  boy.”  But 
Priscilla  said  no  more  about  this  strange,  new 
thing,  and  Philip  was  glad,  because  he  was  shy 
of  its  mysterious  beauty.  Instead,  she  began  to 
do  familiar,  pleasant  things,  bringing  out  bread 
and  cheese,  and  making  a  hot  drink.  And,  with 
a  start  from  her,  it  was  easy  for  Philip  to  tell 
Felix  about  his  problem  of  how  to  find  more 
work.  Victor,  he  said,  had  suggested  looking 
for  a  wine-boy’s  job  in  one  of  the  Subura  tav¬ 
erns  that  were  open  all  night.  It  would  mean 


54  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

a  rough  life  and  hard  hours,  but  he  could  stand 
it  for  the  sake  of  the  money.  Felix  went  over 
to  the  hearth  and  whispered  a  moment  to  Pris¬ 
cilla,  who  was  lifting  the  steaming  pot  from 
the  red  coals.  When  he  came  back  he  said, 
“Let  me  find  you  a  place,  Philip.  I  will  have 
one  for  you  by  to-morrow  evening.”  The  boy 
could  find  no  words,  but  his  wonderful  friends 
seemed  to  understand.  He  drank  his  hot  water 
and  wine  in  a  maze  of  happiness,  body  and  mind 
revived  and  comforted. 

And  that  was  how  Philip  became  the  evening 
porter  at  the  door  of  the  House  of  the  Good 
Shepherd.  He  had  been  there  a  week  when 
Stephanus  was  brought  in  by  Felix.  Narcissus 
and  Persis,  whose  kindness  won  his  ardent  al¬ 
legiance,  were  already  watering  the  seed 
planted  by  Priscilla.  The  work  that  Felix  was 
helping  them  to  do  revealed  to  him  the  meaning 
of  their  love  for  the  compassionate  Shepherd 
of  whom  they  talked.  With  all  the  delicate  in¬ 
tensity  of  his  nature,  Philip  entered  into  the 
ministry  of  the  household. 


THE  DAY  STAR  55 

But  this  same  nature  led  him  to  receive  a 
further  influence  from  another  lover  of  Jesus 
Christ.  It  came,  on  the  evening  of  Stephanus ’s 
arrival,  from  Lucius  who  had  called  to  walk 
home  with  Felix.  As  Felix  was  not  yet  ready 
to  leave  and  as  Philip  was  being  sent  off  by 
Narcissus,  who  never  allowed  him  to  stay  over 
hours,  he  said  that  he  would  accompany  the  boy 
for  a  few  blocks.  The  young  charm  of  this  pro¬ 
tege  of  Felix  had,  on  several  occasions,  at¬ 
tracted  his  attention,  and  he  seized  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  to  know  the  boy  better.  Emerging  from 
the  house  they  found  that  the  rain  had  stopped, 
and  that  here  and  there,  amid  the  scudding 
clouds,  stars  were  shining.  Philip  talked 
eagerly.  He  told  Lucius  about  Stephanus  and 
his  dog,  and  the  wonder  of  Felix  finding  just 
him,  and  the  happiness  of  Felix  and  Narcissus, 
because  Stephanus  had  seemed  really  to  listen 
at  the  evening  meeting.  They  were  planning  to 
find  him  work  and  keep  him  a  good  and  honest 
man.  “It  is  what  Jesus  would  have  done,  isn’t 
it?”  the  boy  added — his  shyness  lost  in  the  tide 


56 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


of  understanding  tliat  had  flooded  in  upon  him. 
“Yes,”  Lucius  said,  “he  would  have  given  him 
food  and  drink  and  warmth  and  the  hope  of 
work.  And  then  he  would  have  given  him  a 
star,  too.”  In  the  darkness  the  boy  could  not 
see  the  man’s  tender,  whimsical  smile,  but  his 
quick  ears  caught  the  sudden  shift  of  phrase. 
The  stars  always  fascinated  him.  He  never 
failed  to  peer  for  them  above  the  narrow  streets, 
however  oppressively  the  upper  stories  of  the 
houses  interfered  with  the  upward  glance.  He 
had  never  been  too  tired  to  seek  their  jeweled 
gleam.  What,  then,  did  Lucius  mean  by  saying 
that  Jesus  could  give  to  you  a  star? 

They  had  reached  the  corner  where  they  were 
to  separate.  Lucius  stopped  by  the  shrine  of 
Mercury,  which  marked  the  crossing  of  the 
thoroughfares,  and  leaned  his  head  back  to  look 
up  into  the  sky,  by  this  time  wind-swept  and 
star-strewn.  “They  are  beautiful  after  this 
gloomy  day,  aren’t  they?”  he  said.  “I  saw  your 
eyes  go  straight  up  to  them  when  we  came  out 
of  the  house.”  And  then  he  held  out  his  hand 


THE  DAY  STAR  57 

to  Philip.  “  Good-night,  little  brother.  The 
love  of  God  is  like  that,  mysterious  and  yet  real, 
just  as  the  stars  are.  Stephanus  needs  it,  we 
all  need  it  as  much  as  we  need  food  or  warmth. 
Jesus  found  it  and  offers  it  to  us.  I  think  he 
was  already  looking  for  it  when  he  was  a  hoy 
like  you.  Good-night,  again.  Peace  be  with 
you — and  joy  in  believing.’ ’  His  voice  seemed 
to  linger  in  kind  cadences  as  he  pressed  the 
boy’s  hand,  and  turned  away. 

And  that  was  how  Philip,  with  a  child’s  clar¬ 
ity  of  vision,  on  the  very  evening  that  had  most 
clearly  revealed  to  him  the  compassion  of  Love, 
caught  sight  also  of  its  starry  reaches.  From 
that  evening  there  began  for  him  a  new  inner 
life.  His  outward  routine  was  the  same,  but 
within  he  was  conscious  all  through  the  day  of 
help  and  comfort  and  guidance.  Listening 
eagerly  to  the  many  stories  about  Jesus  Christ, 
he  had  picked  out  from  them  things  almost  lost 
upon  his  elders.  To  him  the  boy  Jesus  became 
a  living  reality.  This  boy  had  known  what  it 
was  to  work  and  make  things  with  his  hands — to 


58 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


help  his  mother— -to  be  the  oldest  son  of  a  grow¬ 
ing  family.  He  mnst  often  have  been  tired,  and 
yet  he  found  time,  too,  to  try  to  learn  more 
about  God— -once  he  had  even  forgotten  his  fam¬ 
ily  in  order  to  study  and  learn  about  the  busi¬ 
ness  of  his  Father  in  Heaven.  This  boy  was 
with  Philip  when  he  hurried  out  of  bed  before 
the  dawn,  when  he  bent  over  his  instruments  in 
Dento’s  shop,  when  he  received  harsh  orders 
from  irritated  customers,  when  he  made  his 
way  through  the  selfish,  noisy  crowds,  when  he 
served  Narcissus  as  best  he  could,  when  he 
slipped  into  bed  again  and  laid  his  head  down 
for  a  few  hours  of  sleep  beside  the  tousled  heads 
of  his  little  brothers. 

And  somehow  nothing  seemed  as  hard  to  him 
as  it  used  to  seem.  He  noticed  all  sorts  of 
cheerful  things.  His  little  sister  was  growing  to 
be  almost  as  pretty  and  sweet  as  Agatha. 
Among  the  early  crowds  in  the  streets  there 
were,  after  all,  kindly  happenings — one  morn¬ 
ing  the  cross-looking  sausage-seller  at  the  cor¬ 
ner  of  Caesar’s  Temple  actually  lost  a  sale  be- 


THE  DAY  STAR 


59 


cause  lie  stopped  to  help  a  clumsy  shepherd  re¬ 
load  his  donkey.  In  the  shop  the  workman  just 
above  him  expressed  pleasure  in  the  red  bril¬ 
liance  of  rubies.  More  than  once  a  grand  lady 
spoke  gently  to  her  maid.  And  on  the  next 
holiday,  when  the  shop  was  closed  in  honor  of 
the  erection  of  a  new  statue  of  Mercury,  the 
tutelary  patron  of  the  district,  he  found  that 
Victor  and  the  other  boys  did  want  him  to  play 
ball  with  them,  and  take  his  old  place  in  the 
band  of  “ Eaglets.’ ’ 

Indeed,  the  Eaglets — as  boyishly  grandilo¬ 
quent  as  senators’  sons — welcomed  Philip  back 
with  enthusiasm.  His  depression  during  the 
past  months  had  puzzled  them.  But  now  a 
freshness  of  spirit,  although  unanalyzed,  pe¬ 
culiarly  attracted  them.  Always  popular,  he 
became  more  and  more  the  acknowledged  leader 
among  these  warm-hearted  comrades.  And 
what  the  boys  felt  for  him  was  felt  more  con¬ 
sciously  by  those  who  were  older.  His  mother 
was  teased  out  of  her  anxieties  into  soft  ways 
with  him,  and  his  father  spared  time  for  an  oc- 


60  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

casional  word  of  praise.  Dento  made  no  secret 
of  his  partiality.  Charinus  took  a  frank  pleas¬ 
ure  in  his  enlivened  intelligence  and  his  blithe¬ 
ness.  Felix  and  Priscilla,  Narcissus  and  Persis 
watched  his  boyish  good  living  with  proud  affec¬ 
tion.  Lucius  alone,  perhaps,  sometimes  saw  his 
young  face  shine  with  an  inner  light  and  under¬ 
stood  that  he  grew  in  favor  with  others  because 
he  had  found  for  himself  the  bright,  the  morning 
star. 


IN  THEIR  AFFLICTION 


I 

“Five  hundred  denarii  at  the  very  least,’ *  the 
Syrian  insisted,  keeping  a  proprietary  finger  on 
his  engraved  gem.  Dento’s  face,  usually  good- 
humored  and  smiling,  sharpened  and  grew 
crafty  as  it  always  did  when  Echion  came  in 
with  wares  to  sell.  The  object  which  he  was 
showing  to-day  was  a  quaint  amulet  in  the  form 
of  an  elliptical  piece  of  onyx,  engraved  with  the 
figure  of  Juno  the  Savior  clad  as  she  was  wor¬ 
shiped  by  peasants  at  Lanuvium  in  a  goatskin 
and  accompanied  by  a  serpent.  This  native 
costuming  was  what  gave  value  to  the  small  ob¬ 
ject,  since  usually  the  deities  on  such  gems  wore 
conventionalized  Greek  dress.  The  engraving 
itself,  as  Dento  had  been  protesting,  was  a  very 
ordinary  bit  of  work.  He  spoke  with  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  a  craftsman  as  well  as  a  buyer.  His 

own  engraving  on  gems — chiefly  portrait  heads 

61 


62 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


—was  of  recognized  excellence.  He  had  just 
finished,  on  a  beautiful  piece  of  sardonyx,  a  sur^ 
prising  likeness  of  his  only  son,  a  boy  of  eight, 
with  a  straight  Greek  nose,  and  heavy  soft  hair 
brushed  down  over  the  ears,  and  a  lifted  chin 
pushing  out  the  upper  lip  in  a  characteristic 
expression  of  gay  defiance. 

But  Echion  waved  aside  the  criticism  of  the 
workmanship,  going  back  with  the  sure  instinct 
of  his  trade  to  the  rarity  of  the  subject  which 
would  be  sure  to  tempt  some  rich  dilettante  col¬ 
lector.  He  made  his  living  by  ferreting  out 
jewels  and  similar  heirlooms  among  people  who 
had  come  down  in  the  world  and  whose  poverty 
and  ignorance  of  values  made  them  easy  victims 
of  Echion  ?s  cleverness.  Dento  knew  perfectly 
well  that  the  owner  of  Juno  the  Savior  had  been 
lucky  if  she  had  brought  him  in  even  fifty 
denarii.  But  he  also  knew  that  he  could  sell 
the  odd  jewel  again  for  a  thousand.  Echion 
slipped  up  in  not  realizing  the  prices  accepted 
by  the  rich.  While  this  made  the  merchant  will¬ 
ing  to  concede  a  large  profit  to  the  middle-man 


IN  THEIR  AFFLICTION  63 

on  his  own  transaction,  the  son  of  a  Greek  had 
no  intention  of  letting  a  Syrian  off  with  his  first 
demand.  “ Three  hundred,”  he  repeated,  lay¬ 
ing  his  hand  open  on  the  counter. 

Philip  came  in  from  the  work-room  with  an 
inquiry  about  a  pair  of  earrings  made  up  of 
amethysts  and  topazes  ordered  by  the  beautiful 
young  wife  of  Calpurnius,  one  of  their  best  cus¬ 
tomers,  but  he  slipped  out  again  without  putting 
the  question.  A  shudder  always  came  over  him 
when  he  ran  into  Echion — he  knew  too  well  how 
he  got  the  objects  which  he  brought  to  Dento. 
Only  yesterday  he  had  seen  him  coming  down 
from  the  attic  at  the  very  top  of  his  own  tene¬ 
ment  in  the  Argiletum,  the  attic  that  was  occu¬ 
pied  by  a  poor  widow  and  her  crippled  son. 
The  woman  had  come  from  Ostia  and  had  evi¬ 
dently  seen  better  days.  His  mother  had  gone 
up  one  day,  when  she  heard  the  little  boy  was 
sick,  and  had  been  much  impressed  by  a  silver 
saltcellar  standing  on  the  rickety  table  in  the 
room  which  even  to  her  seemed  barren  and 
miserable.  Philip’s  eye  now  caught  a  glimpse 


64  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

of  the  gem  in  its  quaint  old  setting,  and  he  went 
out,  thinking  of  the  widow’s  white,  thin  face, 
and  of  the  hump  on  her  child’s  back  which  al¬ 
ways  made  his  throat  ache  when  he  passed  him 
on  the  staircase  or  saw  him  huddled  up  against 
the  wall  of  the  house  seeking  the  sun  on  these 
chilly  December  days. 

Dento  and  Echion  went  on  with  their  bargain¬ 
ing.  It  grew  sharper  and  more  intense.  Racial 
rivalries  egged  them  on.  They  watched  each 
other  like  lynxes. 

But  suddenly  a  slave  rushed  through  the  door 
and  up  to  Dento  without  ceremony.  “Oh,  Do- 
minus,”  he  said,  “quick,  quick,  come  home,  the 
little  master  is  terribly  sick.  Domina  has  sent 
me  to  get  you.”  Dento ’s  outstretched  hand 
drew  back  like  lightning  from  the  amulet  of 
Juno  Sospita  and  went  up  to  his  throat.  His 
face  had  turned  quite  white.  His  eyes,  but  a 
moment  ago  so  keen  and  cold,  looked  hunted 
and  afraid.  He  spoke  hardly  above  a  whisper 
as  he  said  to  the  slave,  “Go,  I  will  follow  at 
once.”  He  shook  his  head  protestingly  as 


IN  THEIR  AFFLICTION 


65 


Echion  attempted  some  word  of  sympathy.  He 
turned  to  the  clerk  who  was  sitting  at  a  desk 
near  by  and  gave  a  few  quick  orders.  Philip, 
going  to  the  narrow  window  of  the  work-room 
for  more  light,  saw  his  master  fairly  run  out 
into  the  street,  throwing  on  his  cloak  as  he  went, 
and  unaccompanied  by  the  slave  who  usually 
walked  in  front  of  him.  Dento  did  himself  well 
and  took  pride  in  observing  the  fashions  of  the 
successful. 


ii 

The  child’s  room  was  full  of  every  luxury  that 
could  be  devised  for  the  only  son  of  prosperous, 
comfort-loving  parents.  On  the  walls  were  gay 
pictures  representing  his  favorite  stories.  The 
colors  were  vivid,  so  that  even  in  the  dull  light 
of  a  late  afternoon  they  held  the  eye.  Here  was 
the  “Argo”  sailing  out  on  a  very  blue  sea, 
headed  for  the  Golden  Fleece.  Here  was  Her¬ 
cules  with  a  huge  club  in  one  hand  and  a  tawny 
dead  lion  flung  nonchalantly  over  the  other 


66  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

shoulder.  Here  was  the  beautiful,  golden-haired 
Andromeda  chained  to  a  jutting  cliff  on  the  sea¬ 
shore,  and  Perseus,  armed  with  the  Gorgon’s 
snaky  head,  flying  swiftly  to  her  rescue  on  pur¬ 
ple  and  silver  wings.  On  the  mosaic  floor,  laid 
in  small  black  and  white  squares,  were  placed  at 
strategic  points  the  bright  Oriental  cushions  and 
tapestries  designed  for  chairs  but  used  here  for 
the  comfort  of  bare  little  feet.  The  bed  was 
heavily  veneered  with  ivory  and  tortoise  shell. 
In  one  corner  of  the  room  was  a  chest,  standing 
open  and  filled  with  a  careless  collection  of  ex¬ 
pensive  tops  and  hoops,  and  balls  of  many 
colors.  A  box  of  agate  marbles  marked  the 
acme  of  luxury.  Most  boys  had  to  play  with 
nuts.  But  all  these  things  were  of  no  avail  this 
afternoon  for  the  boyish  master  of  the  room 
who  on  his  luxurious  bed  turned  and  tossed  in 
restless  fever.  His  mother  cowered  in  a  big 
ornamental  chair,  whimpering  ineffectively,  her 
elaborate  coiffure  looking  oddly  out  of  place  as 
the  tears  streaked  her  rouged  and  powdered 
face.  The  nurse  with  surer  hand  tried  to  keep 


IN  THEIR  AFFLICTION  67 

the  coverlets  over  the  child,  and  to  put  on  his 
forehead  cloths  wrung  out  of  snow  water.  He 
had  not  seemed  well  for  several  days,  and  had 
complained  of  his  throat  and  head,  but  they  had 
thought  it  was  only  a  cold.  Within  the  last  few 
hours,  however,  so  the  mother  told  Dento  in  an¬ 
swer  to  his  rough  questioning,  he  had  grown 
rapidly  worse.  The  fever  seemed  to  have  him 
in  its  grip.  Yes,  they  had  sent  for  the  doctor, 
but  he  had  not  been  at  home.  They  could  only 
leave  a  message  for  him.  They  had  no  idea 
when  he  would  get  back.  Dento  paced  the  room 
violently,  and  then,  recalled  to  the  bedside  by  a 
choking  sound  in  the  child’s  throat,  sank  upon 
his  knees,  feeling  for  the  little  hot  hands. 

The  boy  was  the  centre  of  Dento ’s  life.  It 
swept  over  him  now,  in  a  gust  of  despair,  that 
he  had  nothing  else  to  live  for.  His  wife  was 
a  fool,  a  fine  figure  to  adorn  with  silks  and 
jewels,  but  of  no  further  use  to  him.  She  had 
not  wanted  to  bear  more  children  after  the  first 
one,  and  he  had  dismissed  the  domestic  situa¬ 
tion  with  a  contemptuous  shrug.  He  had  no 


68 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


particular  yearning  himself  for  children,  and  as 
for  women,  there  were  plenty  whose  smiles  he 
could  buy  without  loading  himself  up  with  re¬ 
sponsibilities.  Women  anyway  were  fit  only 
for  hours  of  recreation.  A  man’s  business  was 
the  thing  that  counted.  He  was  a  Greek  by 
blood  although  his  family  had  lived  in  Rome  as 
citizens  for  two  generations,  and  the  commercial 
talents  of  his  race  had  found  excellent  scope  in 
developing  the  jewelry  business  inherited  from 
a  more  conservative  father.  At  thirty-five  he 
was  making  money  fast.  He  liked  the  game,  he 
liked  the  sense  of  growing  power,  and  he  liked 
also,  much  more  even  than  his  father  would  have 
liked,  the  actual  things  that  his  money  could 
buy.  He  enjoyed  collecting  ornate  furnishings 
and  adding  to  his  staff  of  slaves.  He  stocked 
his  cellar  with  the  better  wines,  and  wanted  on 
his  table  imported  delicacies  and  the  finest  cuts 
of  meat.  He  liked  to  see  his  wife  more  richly 
dressed  than  any  of  her  friends.  He  wanted  his 
boy  to  live  as  well  as  any  senator’s  son. 

Ah,  but  here  with  his  little  son  there  had  come 


IN  THEIR  AFFLICTION  69 

to  be  a  difference !  Everybody,  everything  else 
was  but  a  lay-figure  to  show  off  Dento’s  own 
success  or  to  furnish  him  amusement.  But  this 
eight-year-old  boy  had  brought  love  to  life  in 
him.  Never  had  the  father  so  realized  it  as 
now,  in  this  hour,  when  he  came  abruptly  up 
against  an  anguished  fear.  He  seemed  to  have 
no  power  left  in  him.  He  was  unused  to  sick¬ 
ness  and  had  no  idea  what  to  do.  Tales  rushed 
through  his  mind  of  sick  children — every  dread¬ 
ful  disease  seemed  to  begin  with  a  sore  throat 
and  an  unnaturally  hot  body.  Amd  sick  children 
always  died.  He  could  not  remember  hearing  of 
one  who  came  down  with  a  fever  and  lived.  His 
hands  grasped  the  child’s  hands  frantically.  He 
could  not,  could  not  let  him  be  sick.  Would  the 
doctor  never  come?  Rage  seized  him  that  the 
fellow  should  have  been  away  when  he  was 
needed  here  and  now.  Could  he  trust  a  servant 
to  find  another  doctor?  He  did  not  know  what 
to  think  or  where  to  turn.  Fear  held  him  in  a 
vise. 

He  did  not  hear  the  door  open  and  was  sud- 


70  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

denly  startled  by  the  voice  of  Philip.  Although 
the  young  craftsman  was  his  favorite  in  the 
shop,  he  had  never  invited  him  to  his  house,  and 
rose  now  prepared  angrily  to  dismiss  him.  But 
Philip  came  up  to  him  swiftly,  and  put  out  his 
hand,  with  his  heart  in  his  eyes.  “Dominus,” 
he  said,  “  forgive  me.  But  I  know  somebody 
who  can  make  the  little  master  well  immediately. 
Won’t  you  let  me  go  and  seek  him?  He  is  a 
good  man  and  will  surely  come.”  Dento  gave 
one  look  into  the  boy’s  eager  eyes,  and  then 
grasped  his  shoulders  and  whirled  him  toward 
the  door.  1  1  Go,  ’  ’  he  said  fiercely, 4  ‘  promise  him 
any  price  he  wants.  Get  him  here  quick.” 

hi 

Philip  hurried  along  the  crowded  streets  in 
the  gathering  dusk,  back  from  the  Yiminal  hill, 
where  Dento  lived,  to  the  Via  Sacra.  In  cross¬ 
ing  the  Forum  he  had  to  steer  his  way  through 
heavy  vehicles  which  were  starting  out  before 
the  legal  hour  for  their  night  traffic.  One  of 


IN  THEIR  AFFLICTION  71 

them  contained  an  invoice  of  marble  statnes 
being  sent  from  the  Transtiberine  workshops 
to  the  retail  shop  where  people  with  more  money 
than  taste,  especially  magnates  from  little 
towns  in  the  provinces,  would  buy  them  for 
market-places  or  for  their  own  new  villas.  They 
stood  upright  in  packings  of  straw,  loosely  held 
by  rope,  and  presented  an  extraordinary  ap¬ 
pearance  which  caught  the  humor  of  the  crowd. 
As  the  wagon  jolted  on  the  rough  cobble  stones 
the  head  of  a  Faun,  with  curly  hair  and  pointed 
ears,  wagged  toward  the  veiled  breast  of  a 
vestal  virgin.  A  tall  and  stately  Juno,  destined 
for  some  provincial  temple,  and  recognized  by 
her  head  dress  rising  above  the  straw,  kept 
nodding  to  a  dimpled  Cupid.  Ribald  jests  were 
shouted  out  by  pedestrians.  Would  they  never 
move  on? 

Philip  was  afraid  that  the  man  he  sought 
might  already  have  left  his  shop,  but  he  found 
him  superintending  the  drawing  of  the  curtains 
for  the  night.  Painted  on  them  were  lyres  and 
flutes,  for  Festus  sold  and  repaired  musical  in- 


72 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


struments.  He  looked,  Philip  always  thought, 
as  if  he  was  concerned  with  beautiful  things. 
He  was  tall  and  slender,  and  his  hair,  of  a 
golden  chestnut  color  in  spite  of  his  forty  years, 
was  brushed  back  from  a  high  and  noble  fore¬ 
head.  His  gray  eyes  were  deep  set  and  clean 
and  clear.  Philip  had  once  been  taken  to  his 
home,  by  Lucius,  on  a  holiday  when  the  shop 
was  closed,  and  ever  since,  as  he  opened  the 
door  to  the  poor  and  needy  at  the  House  of  the 
Good  Shepherd,  he  had  been  brooding  on  his 
hours  in  that  other  house  known  as  the  House 
of  Prayer.  Festus  was  recognized  among  the 
followers  of  the  “new  way”  as  an  intimate 
friend  of  Paul  and  as  a  man  of  peculiar  spirit¬ 
ual  gifts.  He  believed  in  praying,  and  to 
Philip  that  day  he  had  opened  a  door  into 
a  marvelous  world  where  God  and  oneself 
actually  knew  each  other.  Even  in  the 
House  of  the  Good  Shepherd  prayers  were 
very  different  from  those  Philip  had  learned  in 
his  earlier  childhood.  Among  these  new  ones 


IN  THEIR  AFFLICTION 


73 


there  was  only  one  that  yon  could  learn — he 
loved  it  because  Jesus  Christ  had  taught  it  to 
his  friends  and  he  felt  as  if  the  beginning  of  it, 
“Our  Father,’ ’  tied  him  and  his  Friend  close 
together  like  brothers.  The  other  prayers  he 
heard  from  Narcissus  at  the  regular  weekly 
meetings  were  ways  of  thanking  God  for  what 
He  had  done,  and  of  asking  Him  to  bless  them 
further.  Philip  liked  very  much  to  listen  to 
them,  as  he  liked  to  hear  the  Psalms  read  in 
Narcissus’s  alert,  clear  voice.  But,  when  Festus 
prayed,  stranger  things  had  happened  within 
him.  It  was  as  if  the  walls  of  the  house  had 
disappeared,  and  the  sky  had  broken  in,  filled 
with  stars.  Lucius  had  explained  to  him,  going 
home,  that  Festus  fed  the  inner  man  on  prayer, 
that  he  renewed  this  inner  self  day  by  day  by 
bringing  it  where  God  could  breathe  upon  it. 
And  even  the  outer  man  sometimes  could  be 
affected.  Festus  had  actually  healed  the  sick. 
This  was  a  spiritual  gift  granted  beautifully  to 
some  men  and  women.  “Can  you  do  it!” 


74  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

Philip  had  asked  in  awe.  “No,”  Lncius  had 
answered — sadly,  the  boy  felt — “I  am  the  mean¬ 
est  of  the  members  of  Christ’s  body.” 

All  these  things  Philip  had  kept  and  pondered 
in  his  heart,  and  now  in  his  master’s  honr  of 
trouble  he  acted  upon  them.  With  catches  in 
his  throat,  from  having  run  the  last  stretch  of 
the  way  when  he  was  once  free  of  the  Forum, 
he  told  his  story  in  front  of  the  painted  flutes 
and  lyres.  Festus  listened  quietly  and  then  said, 
“Have  you  faith  that  the  child  will  be  healed?” 
“Yes,”  said  Philip.  “It  is  enough,”  said  Fes¬ 
tus,  half  under  his  breath.  “Take  me  to  him.” 
And  they  plunged  back  into  the  crowds. 

IV 

Festus  had  been  sitting  at  the  child’s  bedside 
for  half  an  hour.  Dento  himself  had  met  him 
at  the  door  of  the  atrium  and  flung  at  him  the 
question,  ‘ 1  Will  you  cure  my  child ?  ”  “  One  who 
works  within  me  will  cure  him,”  the  new-comer 
had  answered.  “Will  you  trust  me?”  Was  it 


IN  THEIR  AFFLICTION  75 

his  smile  like  sunlight  through  a  cloud?  Was 
it  his  voice  so  tranquil  in  its  cadence?  Was  it 
his  eyes  like  still  pools?  What  was  it  that 
calmed  the  storm  in  Den  to ’s  heart?  Fear 
seemed  to  fall  from  him.  He  put  out  his  hand. 
“Yes,  I  trust  you,”  he  said. 

Now,  in  the  sick  room,  all  was  quiet.  Festus 
had  laid  his  hand  upon  the  child’s  forehead  and 
almost  immediately  it  seemed  to  bring  a  cool¬ 
ness  that  had  not  been  given  by  the  snow  water. 
The  little  restless  body  grew  quieter,  breath 
came  more  easily.  Festus  had  sat  down  by  the 
bed.  He  had  not  said  anything,  and  his  eyes 
seemed  not  to  see  the  sick  child  in  the  room,  but 
his  face  grew  beautiful  in  the  eyes  of  the  father 
and  the  mother  and  the  nurse  as  they  hung  upon 
it.  The  boy  had  fallen  asleep  and  now  his 
breath  came  quite  naturally.  Dento  put  his 
hand  on  his  forehead  and  found  it  soft  and  cool 
again.  The  nurse  had  lit  one  or  two  of  the 
lamps  in  a  place  where  they  could  not  disturb 
the  child,  and  the  light  from  them  fell  in  bright 
spots  on  the  gay  cushions.  Festus  rose.  “The 


76  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

child  is  well,”  he  said  gently.  “You  will  not 
fear  again.  Peace  be  with  you.”  He  turned 
toward  the  door,  but  Dento  grasped  him  and 
swept  him  back.  “You  have  saved  my  son,”  he 
said  in  a  shaken  voice.  “What  can  I  do  for 
you?  Tell  me  what  you  want — gold,  silver, 
jewels,  name  your  own  price.”  Festus  looked 
at  him  silently  for  a  moment.  Then  a  smile  il¬ 
lumined  his  face  and  rippled  in  his  deep  gray 
eyes.  “The  spirit  is  like  the  wind,”  he  said, 
“it  cannot  be  bought  with  silver  or  with  gold. 
For  myself  it  is  enough  to  have  been  about  my 
Master’s  business.  You  I  am  thankful  to  leave 
at  peace  about  your  child.”  With  a  courteous 
gesture  he  again  turned  to  go.  But  a  question 
shot  swiftly  from  Dento ’s  lips:  “Who  is  your 
Master?”  “Jesus  Christ,”  said  Festus,  his 
head  lifted  in  a  sudden  proud  movement. 
“Where  is  he?”  Dento  flung  back.  The  eyes 
of  Festus  grew  penetrating.  They  swept  the 
luxurious  room,  the  soft  furnishings,  the  child 
on  his  bed  of  ivory  and  tortoise  shell,  the  mother 
in  her  rose-colored  silken  garments  and  silver- 


IN  THEIR  AFFLICTION  77 

laced  sandals.  Then  they  turned  back  to  the 
prosperous  owner,  and  once  more  a  smile  came 
into  them.  “Seek  him  where  the  widow  and 
orphan  are,”  he  said  with  a  tender  lilt  in  his 
voice.  “For  you  he  will  be  there.”  He  left 
swiftly,  in  spite  of  Dento’s  outstretched  hand. 

In  the  hushed  and  happy  room  a  little  child 
slept  quietly.  The  women  talked  to  each  other 
in  low  whispers,  as  the  servant  bathed  her  mis¬ 
tress's  forehead  with  a  rare  perfume.  The  ter¬ 
ror  of  the  earlier  hour  seemed  as  unreal  as  a 
nightmare.  Dento  went  out  and  asked  the  por¬ 
ter  if  Philip  had  left  yet.  Finding  that  he  was 
waiting  in  the  servants'  hall,  he  gave  orders 
that  he  should  have  some  supper  and  then  come 
to  him  in  the  writing-room.  There  he  asked  him 
questions  and  talked  with  him  until  it  was  time 
for  the  boy  to  go  to  his  night  task.  No,  Philip 
explained,  his  work  was  not  in  the  House  of 
Prayer.  But  he  knew  that  any  guest  would  be 
welcome  there.  Friday  evenings,  yes,  that  was 
when  he  would  be  sure  to  find  Festus  at  home. 


I 


78 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


v 

A  week  later  a  crippled  child  was  seeking  the 
sunshine  in  front  of  a  tall  tenement  house  on  the 
Argiletum.  He  was  too  lame  to  play  in  the 
streets  with  the  other  children  and  sat  on  the 
pavement  propped  up  against  the  hard  wall. 
His  back  ached  cruelly  to-day  but  he  tried  to 
forget  it  in  watching  the  boys  playing  ‘  ‘  Camp  ’ ' 
with  nuts.  Three  nuts  and  a  fourth  on  top 
formed  the  castellum ,  to  be  scattered  by  one 
throw.  Click,  click  on  the  pavement  went  the 
walnuts  and  chestnuts.  A  little  girl,  with  tight 
black  curls  and  shining  black  eyes,  Philip’s  lit- 
tlest  sister,  tripped  up  to  him  and  tickled  his 
bare  foot,  and  ran  away  again  squealing  with 
delight.  She  bumped  into  a  strange  man,  whom 
the  cripple  had  never  before  seen  near  the  tene¬ 
ment— a  very  rich  and  elegant-looking  man. 
He  picked  the  child  up,  lifted  her  high  in  the 
air,  and  then  set  her  down  gently  on  the  pave¬ 
ment,  where  she  gazed  at  him  round-eyed  and 
speechless.  An  older  boy  came  forward  to  an- 


IN  THEIR  AFFLICTION  79 

swer  some  question  lie  was  asking.  Then,  to 
the  crippled  amazement,  the  stranger  went 
through  their  door.  His  hyacinth-colored  cloak 
was  more  beautiful  than  anything  the  child  had 
ever  seen.  He  must  be  very  grand  and  great. 
What  could  he  want  here?  The  boys  went  on 
playing  with  the  nuts.  A  shadow  fell  across  the 
wall  against  which  he  was  leaning.  He  moved, 
and  it  hurt  him  so  that  he  scarcely  noticed  the 
hyacinth  cloak  sweeping  out  again  through  the 
doorway.  He  was  so  chilly  that  he  must  move 
again.  Everything  grew  dark  before  his  eyes. 
And  then  his  mother  was  there  and  gathered 
him  up  in  her  arms  and  he  felt  tears  on  her 
cheek  as  he  put  his  thin  little  claw  up  to  touch 
her.  But  she  kept  saying,  “The  Gods  be 
thanked,  the  Gods  be  thanked.”  Up  in  their 
room,  holding  him  in  her  lap,  she  told  him  that 
they  were  not  going  to  be  hungry  or  cold  any 
more.  The  rich  gentleman  had  promised  won¬ 
derful  things.  And  he  had  brought  back  to  her 
her  grandmother’s  amulet  which  she  had  sold 
last  week  when  they  were  without  bread — she 


80  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

had  been  frightened  ever  since.  But  when  she 
told  him  that,  he  had  smiled  and  said,  “It  isn’t 
for  Jnno  Sospita  that  I  have  come.”  He  had 
spoken  strangely  anyway,  though  very,  very 
kindly.  When  she  apologized  for  the  poor  room, 
so  cold  and  mean  for  such  as  he,  he  had  said, 
“But  there  is  something  here  more  precious 
than  gold  or  silver  or  jewels.”  What  could  he 
have  meant! 

Doris  looked  around  at  her  shabby  walls  and 
bare  floor,  at  the  tottering  table,  and  the  rough 
bed  where  she  and  the  child  had  to  sleep  to¬ 
gether.  Did  it  look  different  to-day!  It  seemed 
to  her  all  at  once  as  if  something  new  were  there 
— new  and  warm  and  comforting.  Kindness 
had  sought  her  out  and  seemed  still  to  linger 
on,  making  the  dreary  shelter  lighter  and 
brighter.  She  sat  quietly  for  some  time  in  un¬ 
wonted  contentment.  Then  she  looked  down  at 
the  child  curled  close  to  her  breast,  his  face 
resting  on  the  rough  woolen  of  her  dress.  He 
had  fallen  asleep  and  his  face  seemed  free  of 
pain. 


FOR  AN  HELMET 


i 

In  the  little  village  of  Fori  Novi  on  the  edge 
of  the  Sabine  Hills  preparations  were  in  full 
swing  for  the  festival  of  the  Saturnalia.  It  was 
December,  and  the  harvests  were  all  stored. 
The  vineyards  and  fields  were  brown,  the  olive 
orchards  were  lying  fallow  until  the  spring. 
On  the  higher  mountains  farther  to  the  north 
snow  glistened  when  the  sun  was  bright,  but 
the  season  was  a  mild  one  and  no  white  cover¬ 
ing  had  fallen  upon  Mount  Soracte  in  the  nearer 
distance.  Fori  Novi  was  beautifully  situated 
among  the  spurs  of  the  limestone  hills,  where 
purple  shadows  filled  the  hollows,  and  deep 
green  cypress  trees  and  ilexes,  with  brighter 
chestnut  groves,  varied  the  silvery  olives.  Per¬ 
haps  in  the  legendary  life  of  seed  time  and 
harvest,  presided  over  by  the  antique  Saturn, 

lurked  the  origin  of  this  happy  god’s  festival. 

81 


82 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


To-day  it  was  only  the  recurring  season  of  hap¬ 
piness  and  gaiety,  when  good  will  prevailed  and 
everybody  felt  friendly.  In  Rome  great  games 
were  being  made  ready  in  the  Circus  Maximus, 
but  even  in  Fori  Novi  there  was  enough  to  keep 
people  merry.  At  this  one  season,  even  the  slaves 
— the  village  was  by  no  means  without  them 
— were  free  to  dress  as  they  chose  and  speak  as 
they  chose.  The  hard-working  citizens  them¬ 
selves  felt  no  responsibility  for  their  public 
reputation,  but  drank  in  the  tavern  or  played 
dice  with  hilarious  impunity.  People  of  all 
kinds,  village  magnates  and  their  underlings, 
owners  of  farms  and  their  goatherds,  shopkeep¬ 
ers  and  blacksmiths  and  shoemakers,  thrifty 
and  poor,  old  and  young,  men  and  women  and 
children  thronged  the  little  public  square  and 
greeted  each  other  with  a  “Hurrah  for  the  Sat¬ 
urnalia.  ’  ’ 

Nowhere  were  the  preparations  happier  than 
in  the  house  of  Quintus  and  Sabina.  Quintus 
was  the  baker  of  Fori  Novi — a  man  of  recog¬ 
nized  integrity  and  of  a  very  cheerful  disposi- 


FOR  AN  HELMET 


88 


tion.  His  shop  was  a  meeting  place  for  the  bar¬ 
ter  of  the  village.  The  pigs  that  were  cured  in 
the  neighborhood  were  brought  to  him  to  be  sold, 
and  on  the  linen  curtains  of  the  bakery  was 
painted  with  very  red  ochre  a  string  of  hams  in 
addition  to  the  usual  baker’s  picture  in  charcoal 
of  six  loaves  of  bread.  Dried  peas,  too,  and 
beans  were  brought  to  him  to  dispose  of  along 
with  his  own  wares.  Sabina,  gifted  with  prac¬ 
tical  common  sense,  was  a  great  help  to  her 
husband.  He  frankly  relied  upon  her  shrewd¬ 
ness  and  accuracy,  while  she,  loving  his  merry 
heart  and  careless  laughter,  was  entirely  will¬ 
ing  to  keep  her  steadier  hand  on  their  little  busi¬ 
ness. 

Vesta,  of  the  fire  and  hearth,  was  naturally 
the  patron  goddess  of  bakers,  and  Sabina,  at 
this  festival  season,  was  busy  preparing  special 
offerings  to  her.  But  her  whole  heart  was  set 
on  the  home-coming  of  her  only  boy  from  Rome. 
He  was  a  soldier  in  the  Tenth  Legion  which  was 
to  be  sent  over  to  Armenia  immediately  after 
the  Saturnalia.  The  soldiers  had  been  given  one 


84 i 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


day’s  leave  of  absence  from  camp,  and  Floras 
was  expected  in  Fori  Novi  early  in  the  morning 
on  the  great  day  of  the  festival.  Sabina  knew 
how  he  lived  when  he  was  in  camp — one  of  ten 
boys  in  a  tent  under  a  corporal,  obliged  to  grind 
his  ration  of  wheat  for  porridge  and  bread,  and 
to  limit  himself  to  such  scanty  supplies  of  veg¬ 
etables  and  meat  as  his  meagre  weekly  stipend 
would  allow.  The  wine  furnished  to  the  army 
was  of  the  thinnest  and  sourest.  How  she  would 
love  to  feed  him  up  on  his  day  at  home!  She 
went  happily  about  her  work,  spicing  the  sau¬ 
sage  meat,  roasting  two  chickens  and  a  whole 
little  pig,  making  sweet  cakes  with  honey,  pre¬ 
paring  the  best  of  cabbages  and  turnips.  She 
found  herself  crooning  a  song  which  she  used 
to  sing  to  Floras  at  bedtime  when  he  was  a  child 
in  her  arms.  Even  then  he  had  been  a  sturdy 
little  fellow  with  straight  back  and  legs,  eager 
for  lively  play.  To  his  father  and  mother  it 
came  as  a  bitter  grief  when  he  volunteered  for 
the  army,  but  he  himself  had  taken  up  a  sol¬ 
dier’s  life  with  the  ardor  of  active  youth.  He 


FOR  AN  HELMET 


85 


was  only  nineteen  now,  and  had  been  in  the  army 
for  a  year.  For  to-morrow’s  holiday  he  was  go¬ 
ing  to  leave  Rome  soon  after  midnight  and  by 
sunrise  be  in  Fori  Novi.  Sabina  went  to  bed 
that  night  feeling  that  she  had  never  before 
known  the  happiness  of  the  Saturnalia.  It  was 
the  holiday  on  which  families  and  friends  ex¬ 
changed  presents,  and  gave  each  other  proofs 
of  affection  and  kindly  thoughts,  but  for  her  the 
great  gift  was  to  be  the  precious  time  with  the 
best  son  in  all  the  world. 

ii 

The  next  morning  she  was  up  by  lamplight, 
once  more  straightening  her  best  coverlet  on 
Florus ’s  bed,  scrubbing  the  already  clean  hearth, 
and  making  the  preparations  for  a  gala  break- 
last.  As  the  sun  rose  she  stood  at  the  door  of 
her  low  red-roofed,  blue-walled  house,  straining 
her  eyes  down  the  roughly  paved  village  street 
which  at  the  end  suddenly  slipped  down  the  hill¬ 
side  into  the  long  white  road  of  the  plain 


86  CHILDREN  OF  THE  }NAY 

through  which  pedestrians  from  Rome  must 
come.  There  was  a  flush  of  rose  in  the  sky  and 
it  seemed  to  fall,  too,  upon  her  firm,  sensible, 
well-tanned  face.  Quintus  came  out  from  the 
bakery  rubbing  the  flour  off  his  hands,  shaking 
back  his  thick  black  hair  and  singing  a  tune  at 
the  top  of  his  voice.  Doors  in  neighboring 
houses  here  and  there  were  opening,  but  the 
little  street  was  still  almost  unfrequented  when 
Floras  came  up  into  it,  as  if  with  the  sunlight, 
and  saw  his  father  and  mother  standing  at  their 
doorway.  Everything  about  him  betokened  a 
young  soldier.  The  hobnails  in  his  sandals  clat¬ 
tered  on  the  stones.  Over  his  tunic  he  wore  a 
leather  jerkin  coming  down  to  cover  his  thighs. 
In  his  right  hand  he  held  a  pike,  and  across  his 
left  shoulder  lay  a  forked  stick  supporting  a- 
tidy  bundle.  Darting  past  an  early  donkey 
which  was  meandering  down  the  street  laden 
with  panniers  of  dried  grapes,  running  as  if  to 
charge  upon  happiness,  he  reached  the  arms  of 
his  father  and  mother. 

The  next  hour  was  one  of  pure  delight,  the 


FOR  AN  HELMET 


87 


last  merry  one  that  Sabina  was  ever  to  know. 
A  warm  fire  glowed  on  the  hearth  of  the  little 
living  room.  Above  it  hung  the  shrine  of  the 
family  Penates,  guardians  of  the  household 
stores,  and  also,  in  a  small  niche,  a  picture  of 
two  “ protectors/ ’  good  spirits  watching  over 
the  household.  Home  wrapped  them  about  very 
closely  as  they  ate  their  holiday  breakfast. 
After  his  long  walk  Floras  must  have  bacon 
and  the  best  of  the  village  wine,  with  his  father’s 
fresh  bread  hot  from  the  ovens.  How  their 
tongues  wagged!  Quintus  was  always  inter¬ 
rupting  Floras  with  some  good-natured  jest  or 
gibe,  but  Sabina  never  failed  to  bring  the  con¬ 
versation  back  to  just  what  he  did  in  camp,  and 
just  what  he  ate  and  who  his  friends  were,  and 
how  soon  he  would  have  to  start  for  Armenia. 
“Not  to-day  at  any  rate,  Mother,”  the  boy 
laughed,  “let’s  forget  Armenia  and  devote  our¬ 
selves  to  Fori  Novi.”  He  reached  for  the  pack 
which  he  had  carried  over  his  shoulder  when 
he  came  and,  opening  it,  spilled  out  the  presents 
he  had  brought  from  Rome.  For  his  mother 


88 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


there  was  a  new  terra-cotta  lamp,  and  for  his 
father  a  wax  tablet  for  the  bakery  accounts. 
Nonsense,  he  had  not  given  up  food  to  buy  them 
— if  he  had  he  would  have  brought  something  ex¬ 
citing — a  monkey,  perhaps,  to  chatter  with 
father  or  a  necklace  of  red  stones  for  mother 
from  the  Via  Sacra.  His  bundle  would  be  ridic¬ 
ulously  empty  if  Stephanus  had  not  filled  it  up 
— oh,  he  must  remember  to  tell  them  about  Ste¬ 
phanus,  he  was  working  hard  in  a  lamp  factory, 
and  making  money.  Here  was  a  flute  he  had 
sent  Quintus, 4  ‘  with  an  old  neighbor  ’s  affection¬ 
ate  remembrances,”  and  for  Sabina  a  girdle  of 
red  silk.  And  here,  for  his  brother’s  small  boys, 
were  gaily  colored  balls  stuffed  with  hair  in¬ 
stead  of  loose  feathers.  Wouldn’t  they  feel  citi¬ 
fied  and  superior! 

But  this  was  no  time  to  talk  about  Stephanus, 
in  spite  of  the  pleasure  Quintus  and  Sabina 
took  in  his  remembrances  and  messages.  Floras 
was  the  centre  of  their  hour.  At  nineteen  he 
seemed  as  eager  as  he  had  been  at  nine  to  dis¬ 
cover  the  surprises  they  had  for  him  in  the  tan- 


FOR  AN  HELMET 


89 


talizing  cupboard  which  always  used  to  be  kept 
locked  for  a  week  before  the  Saturnalia.  In  the 
old  days  when  it  was  opened,  the  little  boy,  with 
eager  eyes,  would  see  a  bright  new  cage  for  his 
magpie,  a  spiked  collar  for  his  shepherd  dog, 
a  blue  ribbon  with  a  tiny  bell  on  it  for  his  tamed 
squirrel,  and  a  small  basket  of  candied  plums 
all  for  himself.  This  morning  it  revealed  a  good 
thick  cloak  to  wear  over  his  uniform,  soap  made 
at  home  to  tuck  into  his  soldier’s  pack,  and  a 
warm  soft  gray  muffler  knit  by  his  mother’s 
roughened  hands. 

After  they  had  spent  a  happy  time  over  the 
presents,  Florus  helped  his  mother  clear  away 
the  breakfast.  A  basket  of  figs  arrived  with 
the  good  wishes  of  their  prosperous  neighbor, 
Justus.  A  tiny  girl  came  in  to  bring  Sabina  a 
jar  of  special  olives  from  her  mother.  Round¬ 
eyed,  she  watched  Florus  and  could  hardly  be 
enticed  to  his  outstretched  hand.  Then  Sabina 
told  Florus  that  it  was  time  for  him  to  get  ready 
to  go  to  the  Temple  with  his  father  for  the  sacri¬ 
fices  to  Saturn.  This  was  a  service  only  for 


90  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

men.  It  was  understood  that  she  would  be  cook¬ 
ing  the  holiday  dinner  while  they  were  gone. 
But  here  a  very  strange  thing  happened,  which 
in  one  sudden  savage  cleaving,  like  a  lightning 
flash  cutting  the  skies,  smote  asunder  the  peace 
and  happiness  of  the  household.  Florus  had 
been  sitting  stroking  his  muffler,  which  his 
mother  had  given  him,  his  head  bent  down  over 
it.  Now  he  rose  up  in  all  his  slim  tallness,  with 
a  white  and  straitened  face.  He  held  out  his 
hands  appealingly  to  his  mother,  but  before  she 
could  take  them  he  turned  sharply  to  his  father. 
“ Father,’ 9  he  said,  “I’m  sorry,  but  I  cannot  go 
with  you  to  the  Temple.  I  do  not  believe  in  our 
religion  any  more.  I  have  learned  to  believe 
in  J esus  Christ,  and  I  should  be  disloyal  to  him 
if  I  offered  sacrifices  to  Saturn.  He  has  taught 
us  who  our  true  God  and  Father  is.  I  must  obey 
his  teachings  even  if  it  breaks  my  heart  not  to 
go  with  you.” 

Florus  would  never  mind  facing  an  enemy  as 
much  as  he  minded  piercing  the  hearts  of  his 
father  and  mother  with  the  declaration  of  a  new 


FOR  AN  HELMET 


91 


allegiance  which  they  could  not  understand  and 
which  they  could  not  share.  Quintus  did  not 
attempt  any  further  questions  or  explanations. 
Hurt  in  his  most  sensitive  affections,  he  simply 
turned  away,  and  went  out  alone  and  lonely  into 
the  holiday  crowds  thronging  toward  the  little 
temple.  Religious  observances  belonged  to  life 
as  he  knew  it.  Not  vital  to  him  in  themselves, 
they  were  entwined  with  all  that  was  vital  and 
familiar.  He  had  contributed  this  year  an  espe¬ 
cially  large  sum  to  the  expenses  of  the  sacrifices 
as  a  thank-offering  because  his  son  would  be 
with  him.  At  home  Sabina  tried  to  learn  from 
Florus  something  that  would  make  his  strange¬ 
ness  more  comprehensible,  but  it  all  grew  only 
more  mysterious  to  her.  A  prisoner  of  the  Prae¬ 
torian  Guards  in  Rome  was  preaching  about 
Jesus  Christ  who  had  come  to  help  men,  just 
as  a  shepherd  takes  care  of  his  sheep.  From 
the  Guards  the  news  had  spread  to  other  sol¬ 
diers.  Florus  himself  had  heard  it  only  a  month 
ago,  but  he  felt  sure  that  it  was  true,  and  it  had 
filled  his  life  with  joy.  One  day  he  had  met 


92 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


Stephanas,  when  the  two  were  buying  bacon  at 
the  same  shop,  and  found  that  he  too  believed 
this  new  thing.  Stephanus,  indeed,  had  been 
saved  by  it  from  poverty  and  despair.  Now  he 
was  working  in  a  lamp  factory  run  by  a  man  who 
was  a  follower  of  Jesus  Christ.  On  some  of  his 
terra-cotta  lamps  this  merchant  was  stamping 
the  figure  of  the  Good  Shepherd.  That  was  why 
Florus  had  picked  out  a  lamp  for  his  mother, 
he  had  wanted  to  tell  her  what  the  figure  meant, 
to  make  both  her  and  his  father  believe,  with 
him,  in  a  Father  in  Heaven  who  could  guard 
them  more  wisely  than  Yesta  or  the  Penates  or 
even  than  Jupiter,  and  in  an  elder  brother  who 
could  teach  them  how  to  be  courageous — he  often 
needed  that- — and  good  and  kind  and  honest. 

Florus ’s  young  voice  fairly  trembled  with 
eagerness,  but  his  words  fell  only  unhappily 
upon  his  mother’s  bewildered  ears.  As  the  talk 
went  on  both  realized  the  impossibility  of  their 
minds  meeting.  By  the  time  Quintus  came 
home  all  that  had  been  accomplished  was  for 
mother  and  son  to  recognize  sadly  the  gulf  that 


FOR  AN  HELMET 


93 


had  yawned  between  them,  and  to  try  to  draw 
closer  together  for  comfort  during  the  re¬ 
mainder  of  the  day.  Quintus  fell  in  with  this 
as  if  by  tacit  understanding. 

How  different  the  evening  of  that  day  was 
from  the  morning !  When  the  shadows  began  to 
lie  deep  along  the  hillsides,  Florus  once  more 
put  on  his  jerkin  and  took  his  pike  and  bundle 
and  prepared  to  start  for  Rome.  And  from 
Rome  he  was  to  go  to  Armenia,  perhaps  never 
to  return.  To  his  father  and  mother  the  part¬ 
ing  seemed  even  more  terrible  than  they  had 
anticipated.  They  could  not  ask  him  to  pray 
to  the  Penates  that  he  would  come  home  again. 
They  could  not  ask  him  to  make  any  homely  lit¬ 
tle  offerings  to  the  Guardian  Spirits  of  the 
household.  They  could  not  ask  him  to  remem¬ 
ber  little  childish  prayers  he  used  to  say  to  Do- 
miduca.  They  were  sending  him  out  into 
strange  lands,  into  terrible  dangers  without  the 
guardianship  of  his  gods.  Patiently  Sabina 
packed  for  him  in  his  soldier’s  kit  the  muffler 
and  the  warm  cloak,  and  such  food  as  she 


9 4*  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

thought  could  be  kept  for  the  first  days  of  his 
march.  She  kissed  him  on  both  cheeks,  and  on 
his  eyes  and  on  his  mouth,  and  clung  to  him  a 
moment  in  the  doorway.  His  father  with  a  loud 
sob  kissed  him  on  both  cheeks.  It  was  growing 
dark  and  they  watched  him  go  down  the  street 
and  heard  the  nails  of  his  sandals  clatter  as  he 
passed  out  of  sight. 

From  the  roof  of  the  house  at  the  end  of  the 
street  a  raven  suddenly  flew  down,  lighting  on 
the  left  side  of  the  doorway  as  Florus  disap¬ 
peared.  Sabina’s  heart  almost  stopped  beating ! 
Under  ill  omens,  unguarded  and  undefended,  her 
boy  had  gone. 


m 

It  was  in  February  that  Florus  fell  in  battle, 
and  in  early  March  that  the  news  reached  Sa¬ 
bina  and  Quintus  through  the  official  channels. 
His  legion  had  been  sent  from  Rome  the  week 
after  the  Saturnalia,  and  on  the  eve  of  depart¬ 
ure  he  had  been  made  corporal  of  his  mess  of 


FOR  AN  HELMET  95 

ten.  This  report  of  promotion,  with  his  good¬ 
bye  message  of  love  and  devotion,  had  been 
brought  to  them  by  Stephanus.  It  had  com¬ 
forted  them  through  the  bleak  days  of  winter, 
and  done  its  part  toward  healing  the  wound  in¬ 
flicted  by  their  boy’s  last  day  at  home.  This 
they  could  understand,  how  his  intelligence  and 
sobriety  and  industry  had  raised  him,  at  an  un¬ 
usually  early  age,  among  his  fellows.  Stephanus 
had  made  no  reference  to  the  strange  things  that 
separated  them,  but  had  talked  of  Floras  as  a 
credit  to  their  care  and  training. 

And  now,  after  the  devastating  news  of  his 
death  had  crashed  into  the  soft  loveliness  of  the 
spring  in  Fori  Novi,  it  was  again  Stephanus 
who  came  from  Rome  to  bring  them  a  last  mes¬ 
sage  from  Floras.  In  far-off  Armenia,  on  the 
night  before  a  crucial  advance  against  the  en¬ 
emy,  the  young  corporal  had  found  a  chance  to 
write  a  letter  to  his  father  and  mother.  En¬ 
trusted  to  a  loyal  private  to  send  forward  in 
case  of  death,  the  precious  wax  tablet  had  found 
its  way  from  hand  to  hand,  finally  reaching  a 


96  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

soldier-friend  in  Rome  who  carried  it  to  Ste- 
phanus.  He  brought  it  to  Fori  Novi  when  Quin¬ 
tus  and  Sabina  had  dwelt  with  grief  for  a  piti¬ 
less  month.  The  weeks,  although  few,  had  ex¬ 
acted  a  heavy  toll  from  them.  Sabina’s  face, 
once  so  alert  and  vigorous,  looked  now  worn  and 
patient.  Quintus,  as  the  lesser  of  the  two,  was 
even  more  pathetic.  Without  his  ringing  laugh 
and  boisterous,  happy  ways  he  seemed  deprived 
of  personality  altogether.  In  the  late  after¬ 
noon  of  an  April  day  they  were  sitting  in  their 
doorway,  trying  to  rest  after  a  busy  day  in  the 
bakery  and  shop.  From  their  little  garden  plot 
came  the  sweet  smell  of  jessamine.  The  western 
sky  was  changing  from  blue  to  amethyst.  The 
village  street  was  full  of  neighbors,  hurrying 
home,  or  already  sitting  in  their  doorways. 
Cheerful  and  noisy  greetings  were  exchanged 
on  every  hand.  Now  and  then  the  bray  of  some 
little  brown  donkey  indicated  his  satisfaction 
in  the  end  of  a  toilsome  day.  A  goatherd  drove 
a  few  goats  from  door  to  door,  milking  them  for 
the  housewives.  At  the  end  of  the  street,  com- 


FOR  AN  HELMET 


97 


ing  up  from  the  hillside  and  plain,  appeared  a 
pair  of  heavy,  grayish  oxen  drawing  a  cartload 
of  dried  fodder.  And  behind  them,  talking  with 
the  driver,  came  Stephanus.  To  the  surprise 
of  Quintus  and  Sabina,  instead  of  turning  to  the 
right  toward  the  temple,  near  which  his  brother 
lived,  he  made  his  way,  smiling  and  waving  his 
cap  in  answer  to  many  a  friendly  greeting,  di¬ 
rectly  to  them. 

Within  the  house,  under  the  shrine  of  the  Pen¬ 
ates,  the  flickering  daylight  helped  out  by  the 
lamp  which  bore  the  device  of  the  Good  Shep¬ 
herd,  Sabina  read  aloud  to  Quintus  the  last 
words  of  their  son.  They  were  written  almost 
illegibly,  evidently  with  a  rough  stilus,  but  the 
mother’s  eyes  made  them  out: 

“Floras  to  his  beloved  father  and  mother, 
greeting. 

“I  go  into  battle  to-morrow.  I  cannot  sleep 
because  I  am  thinking  of  home.  The  light  I  am 
writing  by  will  last  only  a  few  minutes,  so  I 
must  tell  you  quickly  what  is  in  my  heart.  If  I 
am  killed  to-morrow,  do  not  be  sorry  for  me. 


98  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

It  will  make  no  difference  what  happens  to  my 
body.  The  spirit,  not  the  flesh,  is  life,  and  the 
enemy  cannot  kill  it.  Jesns  Christ,  my  Lord, 
was  condemned  to  death  and  crucified.  Those 
who  knew  him  say  that,  while  he  was  dying,  in 
his  body,  on  the  cross,  he  gave  his  spirit  into 
the  hands  of  God,  his  Father.  He  was  older 
than  I  am,  but  a  young  man,  all  the  same,  and 
he  must  have  had  many  reasons  for  wanting  to 
live.  But  he  had  kept  doing  what  was  right, 
and  so  his  spirit  was  pure,  and  that  is  the  only 
real  life  there  is.  Since  I  heard  about  him,  last 
November,  I  have  tried  every  day  to  be  like 
him.  Some  of  the  men  in  the  tent  here  say  they 
do  not  see  how  a  soldier  can  try  to  be  like  any 
one  who  preached  peace  and  love  toward  every¬ 
body.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  he  meant  us  to 
obey  the  laws.  When  everybody  believes  in 
him.  the  way  I  do  there  will  not  be  any  wars  or 
any  army.  But  while  the  army  lasts,  I  believe 
he  would  have  told  me  to  be  a  good  soldier, 
obedient  and  courageous  and  kind  to  the  boys 
under  me.  He  has  seemed  to  be  near  me  all  the 


FOR  AN  HELMET  99 

time.  He  is  here  in  the  tent  to-night,  and  I  un¬ 
derstand  that  my  body  need  not  live  any  longer 
for  me  to  have  life.  Even  if  this  is  sent  to  yon 
because  I  am  killed,  I  shall  not  be  dead.  I  am 
trying  to  do  what  is  right,  and  that  is  being 
alive.  I  am  happy.  I  love  you — and  I  want 
you  to  be  happy.  The  spirit — eternal — love.” 

Even  Sabina’s  eyes  could  decipher  no  more. 
The  light  must  have  gone  out  suddenly,  as 
Florus  wrote.  But  from  the  battered  little  tab¬ 
let,  roughly  written,  a  light  seemed  suddenly 
to  flash  into  the  darkness  of  the  mother’s  heart. 
She  laid  her  hand  on  the  lamp  Florus  had 
brought  her.  At  home  here  she  had  not  had 
ears  for  his  words.  But  now  across  the  seas, 
across  even  the  silence  of  death,  she  began  to 
hear,  to  listen.  Into  her  face  came  the  old  alert¬ 
ness.  Quintus  was  looking  at  her  with  a  won¬ 
dering  hope.  She  turned  to  him  and  held  out 
her  arms  as  if  to  gather  in  and  heal  his  broken 
will.  “Dear”,  she  said — “dear  heart,  some¬ 
body  took  care  of  him,  after  all.  Was  it  Jesus 
Christ  ?” 


NOT  TO  THE  FLESH 


i 

April  was  abroad  in  the  city,  and  to-day — the 
first  of  the  Floralia,  the  Feast  of  Flora — the 
curbstones  were  spilling  over  with  flowers 
brought  in  from  the  country  to  sell  to  the  holi¬ 
day  throngs.  Wisps  of  white  cloud  scarcely 
flecked  the  brilliant  blue  sky.  The  sun  tipped 
with  gold  the  roof  of  the  Capitol  and  lighted  on 
the  pavements  of  even  the  poorest  streets  to 
warm  the  bare  feet  of  happy  children  as  they 
danced. 

Doris  was  taking  her  little  son  out  to  see  the 
sights  early  in  the  morning  before  the  crowds 
should  become  too  dense  for  a  cripple.  He  had 
grown  so  much  stronger  since  December,  thanks 
to  plenty  of  porridge  and  goat’s  milk  and  eggs, 
that  he  could  walk  some  distance  with  enjoy¬ 
ment.  The  hump  on  his  back  was  still  there,  but 

his  big  black  eyes  had  lost  their  look  of  misery, 

101 


102  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

and  the  fingers  which  clutched  his  mother  ’s  were 
round  and  warm  with  added  flesh.  Doris, 
through  Dento’s  help,  had  obtained  steady  em¬ 
ployment  as  a  repairer  of  fine  embroideries  in 
a  costumer’s  shop  on  the  Vicus  Tuscus  which 
led  from  the  Forum  to  the  Circus  Maximus,  and 
was  able  to  hire  two  rooms  in  a  decent  lodging 
house  near  by,  run  for  respectable  working 
people. 

The  goal  of  their  walk  this  morning  was  the 
great  Circus  where  later  in  the  day  games  were 
to  be  held.  On  a  corner  near  a  shrine  of  Venus 
they  stopped  to  look  at  some  big  baskets  of 
flowers  just  lifted  from  the  brown  backs  of  four 
little  donkeys  by  a  couple  of  mischievous  village 
boys  who  seemed  quite  oblivious  of  the  scolding 
tongue  of  the  older  man  in  charge  of  them. 
Doris ’s  boy,  in  his  delight,  let  go  her  hand  and 
ran  nearer  to  the  fragrant  stores.  The  smell 
of  acacia  mingled  with  that  of  jessamine  and 
syringa.  Yellow  and  deep  red  roses  rioted  over 
the  edges  of  the  baskets.  Rose-colored  laurel, 
white  pinks  and  purple  gilly  flowers  lurked  be- 


NOT  TO  THE  FLESH  103 

hind  them.  Even  so  late  in  April  there  were 
scarlet  and  pink  geraniums  and  heliotrope  and 
a  few  tardy  bunches  of  narcissus.  Doris  lin¬ 
gered  almost  as  if  in  a  trance.  The  fragrance 
and  the  color  swept  her  memory  back  to  her 
grandmother’s  garden  in  Fori  Novi  where  she 
used  to  make  a  visit  every  spring  in  her  child¬ 
hood  and  as  a  growing  girl,  when  she  lived  at 
Ostia.  To  go  from  her  seaport  home  to  the  little 
village  in  the  hills  had  always  fascinated  her. 
At  home  she  could  see  the  ships  come  in,  their 
sails  billowing  or  flapping  according  to  the 
weather,  and  run  down  to  watch  unloaded  upon 
the  long  wharves  bales  of  silks  and  linens  from 
the  East,  crates  of  fruit  from  North  Africa, 
and,  more  exciting  because  really  open  to  the 
eye,  wet  baskets  of  bright-scaled  fish  from  their 
own  sea.  But  in  Fori  Novi  the  sky  line  ran 
unevenly  above  encircling  hills  and  white  roads 
curled  on  and  on  toward  their  soft  blueness.  In¬ 
stead  of  the  songs  of  the  sailors  you  heard  soft 
calls  of  the  lambs  in  the  hillside  pastures,  and 
instead  of  the  steady  salt  smell  from  the  open 


104 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


sea  yon  caught  a  fleeting  perfume  from  the  bean- 
fields  in  blossom  below  the  olive  orchard  on  the 
low  green  hill  to  the  south  of  the  village.  There 
was  no  water  at  all  except  the  silvery  stream 
which  filled  the  fountain  in  the  square  and  whose 
source  you  could  visit  on  a  long  day’s  picnic,  if 
you  followed  here  and  there  bright  little  cas¬ 
cades  falling  over  rocks  covered  with  moss  and 
maiden-hair  fern. 

Doris  bent  lower  over  the  narcissus  in  the 
baskets  on  the  city  pavement.  Her  grandmoth¬ 
er’s  old-fashioned  garden  had  pathways  edged 
with  soft  green  grass,  and  from  the  grass  in 
early  April  nodded  blossoms  of  white  narcissus 
with  their  yellow  centres.  She  could  remember, 
as  if  they  all  grew  together  in  one  April  week, 
beds  of  pinks,  and  purple  iris  glowing  in  the 
sunshine,  and  blue  periwinkle  and  reddish  ca¬ 
mellias.  Along  the  grassy  path,  set  with  big  flat 
stones  that  led  to  the  well-house,  there  used  to 
be  masses  of  heliotrope  and  mignonette. 

The  old  well-house!  What  a  delight  it  had 
been  to  her  and  her  cousin,  Marcus,  and  his 


NOT  TO  THE  FLESH 


105 


bosom  friend,  Floras,  son  of  the  baker  in  Fori 
Novi,  when  she  was  a  lively  lanky  girl  of  four- 
teen  inventing  games  and  leading  the  ten-year- 
old  boys  and  their  playmates  in  her  train!  It 
had  been  the  Roman  headquarters  when  they 
played  Hannibal  and  Fabius — a  difficult  game 
because  nobody  wanted  to  be  the  Carthaginian 
army.  And  it  had  served  as  a  temple  in  the 
market-place  when  they  played  the  Sabine 
Women.  The  well-curb  made  an  excellent  altar 
and  she  would  let  herself  be  dragged  away  from 
it  by  Marcus  and  Floras,  only  to  wrest  herself 
free  outside  and  trip  them  up  in  the  heliotrope 
bed,  with  screams  of  laughter.  How  beautiful 
their  childhood  had  been !  The  intervening  sor¬ 
rows  seemed  to  remove  it  as  far  from  her  real 
life  as  if  it  had  been  the  Golden  Age  of  the  old 
bedtime  stories.  Rome  had  laid  a  savage  grip 
upon  her,  which  had  loosened  only  within  a  few 
short  months.  She  wondered  how  Marcus  and 
Floras  had  fared  in  the  city.  She  had  heard 
from  her  grandmother  of  their  arrival,  but  had 
had  no  heart  to  seek  them  out.  And  after  her 


106 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


grandmother’s  death  every  tie  seemed  broken. 
Both  boys, ’she  believed,  were  in  the  army.  She 
did  wish  she  could  see  her  cousin  again !  Even 
as  a  little  boy  he  had  been  fascinating  to  watch 
with  his  rich  coloring  and  straight  slender  shoul¬ 
ders  and  teasing  smile.  Everybody  loved  him, 
while  he  himself  seemed  to  love  only  Florus. 
In  Florus  there  was  a  certain  steadfastness,  al¬ 
most  austere,  which  held  and  dominated  the 
more  volatile  nature  of  his  comrade.  Was  that 
still  true? 

But  a  rollicking  ditty  in  a  warm  baritone  voice 
called  Doris  back  from  her  dreams  with  a  start. 
Other  early  pedestrians  began  to  stop  for  flow¬ 
ers.  Two  youths,  who  had  evidently  already  be¬ 
gun  to  celebrate  Flora  with  wine,  bought  a  gar¬ 
land  of  red  roses  and  flung  it  over  the  small 
image  of  Venus  on  the  neighboring  shrine,  with 
ribald  jests  about  her  part  in  a  festival  dedi¬ 
cated  to  fertility.  Doris’s  little  boy  was  bend¬ 
ing  over  another  basket  of  roses,  drawing  up 
every  bit  of  perfume  that  he  could  from  their 
delicate  pink  hearts.  Unwrapping  her  purse, 


NOT  TO  THE  FLESH  107 

she  took  out  a  penny  to  buy  him  the  littlest 
bud,  and  hurried  him  on. 

n 

The  day,  forgetting  a  fairer  dawn,  went  its 
feverish,  licentious  way.  In  the  afternoon  there 
were  gladiatorial  games  in  the  Circus  Maxi¬ 
mus,  and,  had  Doris  known,  it  was  here  that  she 
might  have  seen  Marcus,  playing  a  modest  part 
in  the  business  of  the  festival.  He  had,  indeed, 
been  in  the  army  with  Florus,  but  before  their 
regiment  was  sent  to  Armenia  he  had  been  mus¬ 
tered  out  because  of  defective  eyesight.  His 
musical  skill,  however,  had  attracted  favorable 
notice,  and  he  was  placed  in  a  corps  of  trum¬ 
peters  in  the  public  service.  One  item  of  their 
work  was  giving  the  signals  for  the  opening  of 
the  successive  chariot  races  or  gladiatorial  com¬ 
bats  in  the  Circus.  To-day  for  the  first  time  at 
the  Floralia  Marcus  was  occupying  this  post, 
and  the  riotous  hilarity  of  the  scene  fairly  im¬ 
mersed  him.  It  was  the  fashion  at  this  particu- 


108  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

lar  festival  for  men  and  women  alike  to  wear 
parti-colored  clothes  which  made  the  restless 
arena  look  like  a  vast  flower-garden  blown  by 
the  wind.  According  to  an  old  custom,  hares 
and  goats,  suggestive  of  fecundity,  were  let 
loose  to  scurry  through  the  arena,  to  the  bois¬ 
terous  delight  of  the  populace.  Beans  and  lu¬ 
pines,  and  also  little  metal  discs  engraved  with 
bold  words  and  symbols  were  scattered  up  and 
down  the  rows  of  seats.  Awnings  had  not  yet 
been  put  up  over  the  Circus  as  the  season  had 
been  a  late  one,  and  the  light  and  unexpected 
warmth  beat  down  upon  the  crowds,  whose  blood 
was  already  heated  with  wine  and  excitement. 
A  certain  wildness  seemed  to  be  rife  in  the  very 
combats,  in  spite  of  the  watchfulness  of  the 
trainers.  Since  Marcus  had  been  made  a  trump¬ 
eter  for  the  games  his  favorite  gladiator  had 
been  Theodotus,  one  of  the  retiarii,  or  fighters 
with  the  net,  who,  unarmed  and  almost  nude 
and  slight  in  build,  met  the  big  and  heavy 
fighters,  fully  clothed  and  fully  armed  with 
helmet  and  shield  and  sword.  The  chief  pleas- 


NOT  TO  THE  FLESH 


109 


ure  of  the  combat  lay  in  the  paradoxical  sur- 
prise — the  pigmy  almost  always  conquered  the 
giant.  It  was  only  a  matter  of  method  and  time. 
But  to-day  even  the  rules  of  brutality  seemed 
to  be  in  abeyance.  The  unexpected  happened 
as  if  in  a  general  welter  of  spring  madness. 
When  Theodotus  met  his  last  opponent,  his  net 
failed  to  enmesh  its  victim  and  the  heavier  man 
with  a  sword-thrust  pierced  the  unprotected 
throat.  Shouts  of  surprised  delight  came  from 
the  tiers  of  seats.  The  red  blood  of  Theodotus 
trickled  to  the  feet  of  Marcus,  and  the  trainer 
who  hurried  forward  with  attendants  to  remove 
the  dead  body  bumped  against  him.  The  boy 
felt  sick  for  a  moment,  but  braced  himself  for 
the  signals  of  the  next  series  of  combats.  It 
was  the  hour  of  sunset  before  the  last  victor  and 
vanquished  had  glutted  for  that  day  the  holiday 
greed  of  the  people. 

Now  it  was  evening.  The  sky  sparkled  with 
a  million  points  of  light  up  between  the  high 
buildings.  The  narrow  streets  were  lighter  than 
usual  because  bands  of  youthful  merry-makers 


110  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

swaggered  along  everywhere,  brandishing  their 
torches.  Marcus  had  come,  as  he  had  been  do¬ 
ing  every  night  for  several  months  past,  to  a 
tavern  in  the  Subura,  which  had  the  most  indul¬ 
gent  host  and  the  best  wine  and  the  best  food 
in  the  whole  lusty  neighborhood.  The  room 
was  grimy  with  the  constant  smoke  from  the  fire 
at  the  end  where  the  cooking  was  done.  The 
guests  were  seen  through  a  bluish  haze,  punc¬ 
tured  by  yellow  spots  of  light  from  sputtering 
lamps.  From  the  door  Marcus  was  summoned 
with  a  medley  of  whistles  over  to  a  group  of 
pantomimes  with  whom  he  had  made  friends 
during  the  last  week.  They  were  a  strolling 
troupe  from  the  provinces  and  had  turned  up 
in  Rome  at  a  holiday  season,  hoping  for  an  en¬ 
gagement  at  one  of  the  lesser  theatres.  He  took 
a  chair  at  their  long  table  and  ordered  a  drink, 
scarcely  noticing  the  familiar  scene.  Yet  it  was 
a  picturesque  one  and  evidently  entertained  a 
party  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  at  a  small  round 
table  near  the  door — -fine  folk  in  search  of  nov¬ 
elty,  who  had  come  down  from  the  Palatine  and 


NOT  TO  THE  FLESH  111 

the  Esquiline  to  savor  the  license  of  a  popular 
tavern.  At  a  table  near  by  were  gathered  sev¬ 
eral  gladiators  temporarily  free  from  training 
as  they  were  not  on  the  lists  for  this  festival. 
Big  among  them  sat  Crispinus,  the  popular  idol, 
who  had  had  Rome  at  his  feet  during  the  earlier 
and  greater  April  games  in  honor  of  Cybele. 
It  was  whispered  that  Nero  had  composed  a 
paean  to  him  in  the  Pindaric  manner.  A  great 
many  corporals  and  sergeants  from  the  bar¬ 
racks  were  in  the  room,  and  little  shopkeepers 
from  the  neighborhood.  There  were  girls  with 
rouged  faces  and  dyed  hair,  obeying  hints  from 
a  middle-aged  woman  with  sharp  eyes  and 
pudgy  hands  and  a  good-humored  mouth.  Boys 
were  running  about  serving  beans  and  lentils, 
slices  of  ham  and  goose  liver,  hot  sausages,  raw 
onions,  and  pitchers  of  Sabine  and  Falerian 
wine. 

Marcus  tossed  down  his  third  cup  of  Sabine 
as  a  handsome  girl,  bizarrely  dressed,  with  long 
black  eye-lashes  and  glossy  black  hair,  slipped 
onto  the  arm  of  his  chair.  He  put  his  arm  about 


112  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

her  and  swung  her  to  his  knee.  She  whispered 
in  his  ear  and  he  nodded.  Two  of  the  panto¬ 
mimes  started  a  drinking  song  and  the  girl 
jumped  up,  drew  from  her  scarlet  sash  a  small 
tambourine,  and  began  to  dance  in  and  out 
among  the  crowded  tables,  her  white  arms 
gleaming,  her  yellow  draperies  flashing  through 
the  smoky  haze.  Everybody — even  the  aristo¬ 
crats  by  the  door — began  to  beat  out  the  meas¬ 
ure  with  their  hands.  The  actors  sprang  from 
their  seats  and  danced  after  the  girl,  one  of 
them  snapping  Spanish  castanets.  Lender  cover 
of  the  general  confusion  a  man  slipped  into  one 
of  the  chairs  left  empty  beside  Marcus,  and  the 
boy  felt  a  hand  laid  upon  his  shoulder.  Turning 
nervouslv  he  saw  Sertorius,  the  trainer  of  The- 
odotus — involuntarily  he  glanced  at  his  hand  to 
see  if  it  was  still  wet  with  blood.  It  was  a  large, 
sinewy  hand,  befitting  a  large,  powerfully  built 
man,  who  gave  the  impression  of  being  in  per¬ 
fect  physical  condition.  His  face  was  hard  and 
his  eyes  looked  unused  to  gentle  sights.  But  as 
they  rested  on  Marcus  in  his  graceful  youth, 


NOT  TO  THE  FLESH 


113 


flushed  and  quivering  with  the  mood  of  the  hour, 
they  softened  surprisingly.  “See  here,  young¬ 
ster, he  said,  “don’t  you  know  that  you  are 
using  up  all  your  reserve  funds?  You  ought 
to  live  on  your  interest  and  not  on  your  capital. 
Flora  and  Venus  are  not  the  only  goddesses  in 
the  calendar.”  Marcus  frowned  and  edged  a 
little  away  from  him,  but  Sertorius  persisted, 
laying  his  strong  hand  across  the  table  and 
touching  the  boy’s  wrist.  “I’ve  watched  you 
in  the  Circus,”  he  said  kindly,  “and  I’ve  seen 
you  here  more  than  once.  I  don’t  believe  you 
have  a  father  or  an  older  brother  to  give  you 
any  advice.  You  know  perfectly  well  what  I 
mean,  don’t  you?”  “Yes,”  said  Marcus 
abruptly,  flinging  himself  about  and  meeting 
the  man  face  to  face,  “yes,  I  do  know  what  you 
mean.  Your  business  is  to  train  fighters  and,  of 
course,  part  of  your  stock  in  trade  is  to  preach 
against  wine  and  women  and  the  baths.  But 
we’ve  got  to  have  something  in  life,  haven’t  we, 
outside  of  the  job  that  keeps  us  alive  at  all? 
And  what  pleasures  can  a  working  fellow  like 


114  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

myself  buy  except  the  baths,  and  a  bit  of  drink 
and  a  girl  to  play  with?”  “Exactly,”  Ser- 
torius  answered,  “it  is  because  I  think  all  these 
things  are  comforts  that  I  want  you  to  keep  the 
strength  to  enjoy  them  for  a  great  many  years. 
I  am  not  telling  you  to  cut  them  out — women 
least  of  all.  Leave  that  for  the  philosophers. 
I’ve  led  a  practical  man’s  life,  and  expect 
younger  men  to  do  the  same,  but  I  believe  in 
conserving  our  virility.  Make  the  women  side- 
issues,  don’t  use  yourself  up  on  them.  You  are 
going  the  pace  too  rapidly.  Come  down  to  the 
Subura  here  once  a  week  instead  of  every  night. 
At  any  rate  go  home  oftener  when  the  drinking 
is  ended.”  Marcus  looked  at  him  for  a  few  mo¬ 
ments  in  silence.  Then  he  said  abruptly,  “But 
why?  What  is  to-morrow  to  me?  I  may  be 
dead  by  then.  And  when  I  die  I  hope  they’ll 
put  on  my  tombstone  the  only  sensible  epitaph 
I  ever  saw:  “I  was  not,  I  was,  I  am  not,  I  care 
not.’  In  the  meantime,  what  am  I  young  for 
except  to  enjoy  it?  If  I  don’t  care  about  the 
future  why  not  drink  and  love  while  I  can? 


NOT  TO  THE  FLESH  115 

Why — why — that  is  what  bothers  me.” 
“Why?”  Sertorius  repeated  in  slow  perplex¬ 
ity,  looking  like  a  heavy  gladiator  surprised  by 
the  quick  onslaught  of  his  slighter  antagonist. 
“Well,  because  we  are  Romans,  I  suppose,  and 
that  is  the  way  Romans  live.  We  have  con¬ 
quered  the  world.  We  don’t  run  to  waste  as 
the  Greeks  do,  or  the  Egyptians  or  the  Cappa¬ 
docians.  Don’t  you  want  to  act  like  a  Roman?” 
The  Spanish  castanets  and  tambourines  clicked 
and  jingled  more  wildly.  Marcus’s  eyes  fol¬ 
lowed  the  whirling  scarlet  sash,  and  then  turned 
back  to  Sertorius.  “  I  wasn ’t  kept  in  the  army,  ’  ’ 
he  said  sullenly.  “If  Mars  doesn’t  want  me, 
Venus  can  have  me.”  Sertorius  shrugged  his 
shoulders  and  rose  to  go.  “Just  as  you  like, 
youngster,”  he  said,  “it  is  on  your  own  head. 
It  will  be  taken  out  of  your  own  body.  I  only 
hated  to  see  such  good  material  wasted.  But 
that  is  your  affair,  not  mine.  Good  night.” 
Marcus  nodded  indifferently,  as  the  dancing  girl 
landed  in  his  arms  with  a  final  shake  of  her  tam¬ 
bourine. 


116 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


m 

It  was  early  evening  of  the  next  day.  The 
snn  had  just  set,  leaving  gold  and  amethyst  bars 
across  the  west,  as  Marcus  walked  from  the 
Circus  to  the  music  shop  of  Festus  with  his 
trumpet  which  had  been  broken  in  the  course  of 
the  afternoon’s  work.  In  spite  of  the  freshness 
of  the  April  air,  he  was  feeling  languid  and  tired 
and  was  glad  that  he  need  not  hurry.  The  shop 
was  kept  open  on  feast  days  in  order  to  meet 
just  such  emergencies  as  his.  And  he  would  find 
Festus  himself  who  always  gave  the  holidays  in 
full  to  his  apprentices,  at  the  expense  of  his  own 
freedom.  Arrived  at  the  shop  he  found  Festus 
in  conversation  with  a  soldier  in  a  centurion’s 
uniform,  and  was  amazed  to  hear  his  own  name 
pass  between  them.  Festus  stepped  forward 
with  the  smile  which  Marcus  always  thought  the 
very  kindest  one  in  Rome.  ‘ ‘ This  is  a  happy  co¬ 
incidence,”  he  said.  “We  were  just  speaking 
of  you.  This  is  Centurion  Aulus  Granius,  he 
tells  me,  of  the  company  of  your  friend  Florus, 


NOT  TO  THE  FLESH  117 

just  returned  from  Armenia  and  looking  for 
you.  He  has  a  message  for  you  from  your  friend 
who  was  killed  in  battle,  and  who  told  him  that 
if  he  came  to  me  I  could  probably  tell  him  where 
you  lived.  You  see,  Florus  knew  that  I  keep 
your  trumpet  in  repair.  Perhaps  he  knew  also 
how  glad  I  would  be  to  do  him  or  you  a  service. 
I  met  him  once.  He  came  to  my  house  on  a  Fri¬ 
day  evening  just  before  the  Tenth  Legion  sailed, 
and  I  have  never  forgotten  his  face,  and  the 
look  in  his  eyes  when  we  said  ‘good-bye.’  Now 
that  you  and  his  centurion  have  so  fortunately 
met  here,  won’t  you  go  into  my  inner  room  and 
talk?  Take  all  the  time  you  wTish.  I  am  not  in 
any  hurry  to  close  the  shop.”  At  the  words 
“killed  in  battle”  an  icy  hand  had  seemed  to 
grip  the  heart  of  Marcus.  So  Florus  was  dead. 
He  might  have  known  it.  He  was,  he  was  not — 
life  came  to  just  that.  Dully  he  followed  the 
soldier  into  the  inner  room.  They  sat  down 
on  a  bench  beside  a  work  table  on  which  lay  a 
lyre  with  broken  strings  waiting  to  be  made 
whole  once  more.  Aulus  began  his  story  in  a 


118 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


quiet  voice  without  any  excuses.  “I  have  just 
arrived  in  Rome,”  he  said,  “and  am  on  leave 
from  the  barracks  for  a  day.  After  seeing  my 
mother,  I  started  out  to  find  you,  because  I 
promised  your  friend,  Florus,  that  I  would  see 
you  as  soon  as  I  came  back  and  give  you  a  mes¬ 
sage  from  him.  He  was  my  friend,  too.  I  grew 
to  love  him  while  we  were  in  the  service  to¬ 
gether,  both  of  us  far  from  home  and  facing 
death  all  the  time.  As  you  see,  I  outrank  him, 
but  he  was  so  trustworthy  that  we  were  always 
making  use  of  him  in  handling  the  other  boys 
of  his  age,  and  so  I  had  considerable  contact 
with  him  as  my  subaltern.  Sometimes  we  could 
talk  by  the  camp  fire,  and  he  told  me  about  his 
mother  and  father  in  Fori  Novi,  and  about  you 
who  were  his  best  friend  there.  One  night — I 
shall  never  forget  it — he  told  me  about  a  new 
friend,  Jesus  Christ,  who  was  living  only  in  the 
spirit,  but  whom  he  worshiped  as  his  Lord  and 
Master,  trying  to  obey  him  as  we  soldiers  are 
taught  to  obey  those  in  authority  over  us.  Only 
a  week  after  this  we  went  into  battle,  and,  when 


NOT  TO  THE  FLESH  119 

it  was  over,  I  found  that  he  had  not  been  brought 
in  among  the  wounded.  We  were  in  a  cold  re¬ 
gion  and  the  rain  was  falling  heavily,  but  I 
called  for  a  few  volunteers  and  after  nightfall 
we  went  out  to  hunt  for  any  who  might  have 
been  left  still  alive  on  the  battlefield.  The  order 
had  been  issued  that  the  dead  should  not  he 
buried  until  the  next  day.  "We  had  routed  the 
enemy  and  they  were  supposed  to  be  in  full 
flight,  hut  we  thought  it  quite  possible  that  a 
few  bowmen  in  the  rear  might  still  be  lurking 
about,  whiling  to  take  a  shot  at  any  Romans  they 
saw,  so  we  walked  very  stealthily,  which  was 
easy  to  do  on  the  oozy  ground.  In  one  place  I 
stumbled  over  a  soldier’s  dead  body,  lying  near 
a  low  bush.  As  I  picked  myself  up  I  heard  a 
faint  sound  from  the  other  side,  and,  going 
around  and  putting  my  lantern  down  close  to 
the  ground,  I  recognized  Florus.  Blood  was 
coming  from  his  right  side  where  a  spear  had 
pierced  him.  He  was  still  alive,  though  very 
weak,  and  after  I  had  done  what  I  could  do  to 
staunch  the  blood,  and  had  lifted  him  against 


120 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


my  shoulder  and  washed  his  face  and  given  him 
water  to  drink,  he  opened  his  eyes  and  smiled 
at  me.  ‘Thank  you  for  coming, ’  he  said,  and 
shut  his  eyes  again,  and  I  thought  that  he  was 
dying.  But  after  a  few  moments  he  stirred  and 
straightened  himself  up  a  little  and  began  to 
speak  in  a  voice  that  was  quite  clear  and  dis¬ 
tinct.  ‘Listen,  dear  friend,’  he  said — ‘I  may 
call  you  that  now.  I  know  that  this  is  the  end — 
the  end  of  this  body,  I  mean.  I  had  a  strange 
feeling  last  night  that  it  would  be  so,  and  I  wrote 
a  letter  to  my  mother  and  father.  I  wanted  to 
write  to  Marcus,  too,  but  there  was  not  enough 
oil  in  the  lamp.  Promise  me  that  if  you  reach 
Rome  alive  you  will  go  to  him  and  say  it  for 
me.  You  can  find  him  through  Festus’s  music 
shop  on  the  Via  Sacra.  I  never  told  him  about 
Jesus  Christ.  The  right  hour  never  seemed  to 
come.  I  wanted  to  do  it  before  I  left  home,  but 
even  my  mother  and  father  had  not  understood 
and  I  felt  sure  that  he  would  not  listen.  I  think 
that  the  Master  does  not  want  us  to  talk  about 
him  at  the  wrong  time.  But  now  I  have  no 


NOT  TO  THE  FLESH  121 

choice  of  time,  and  there  are  things  which  I 
must  say  to  Marcus.  Tell  him,  for  my  sake,  to 
find  out  about  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  try  to  be  like 
him,  because  then  he  will  be  happier  than  he 
and  I  have  ever  known  how  to  be  in  our  whole 
lives,  even  in  the  laughing  days  when  we  were 
boys  together  at  home.  It  means  being  thrilled 
all  the  time  by  the  hope  of  doing  something  to 
please  him.  It  doesn’t  really  make  any  differ¬ 
ence — I  see  now — whether  you  do  that  by  living 
like  him  or  by  dying  like  him.’ 

“His  voice  weakened  a  little  and  I  thought 
that  he  would  stop  talking,  but  I  moistened  his 
lips  and  he  began  again,  and  his  hand  held  mine 
almost  with  strength.  There  was  a  tender, 
amused  little  sound  in  his  voice,  and  I  felt  that 
he  was  smiling.  ‘Marcus  and  I,’  he  said,  ‘had 
our  first  military  training  together  and  our 
rough  sergeant  used  to  repeat  over  and  over  in 
the  same  words  that  we  had  a  duty  to  our  bodies 
and  Romans  always  did  their  duty.  How  it 
bored  Marcus !  It  was  like  one  note  on  a  trum¬ 
pet  to  him,  prolonged  until  the  nerves  couldn’t 


122 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


bear  it.  Tell  him  for  me  that  there  is  nothing 
like  that  when  you  accept  the  discipline  of  Jesus 
Christ.  You  have  to  do  hard  things,  but  they 
satisfy  your  innermost  heart.  You  have  to  do 
your  duty,  but  it’s  like  carrying  out  your  dear¬ 
est  wish.  He  tells  you  one  thing,  but  in  the 
most  varied  and  beautiful  ways  like  all  the  notes 
in  music  used  to  make  a  song.  And  it’s  like 
listening  to  music  when  you  hear  him  call  you 
into  the  service  of  the  spirit.  Old  Septimus 
was  all  wrong.  Our  duty  is  to  the  spirit,  not  to 
the  flesh.’  ‘ Not  to  the  flesh’— -Floras  repeated 
this  several  times  in  a  whisper,  as  I  held  him. 
And  then  he  drew  himself  up  straight,  quite 
away  from  my  shoulder,  and  as  I  flashed  the 
lantern  upon  his  face  I  saw,  there  in  the  rain 
and  gloom,  that  it  was  lighted  from  within. 
‘ Before  you  came,’  he  said,  ‘as  I  lay  here  first 
I  could  not  think  of  anything  but  the  pain  in 
my  body.  Then  I  heard  steps  near  me — not 
stealthy  ones  as  yours  were  just  now,  but  strong 
and  firm  as  if  whoever  was  there  was  not  afraid. 
And  he  came  around  the  bush  and,  although  it 


NOT  TO  THE  FLESH  123 

was  so  dark,  I  could  see  that  he  was  tall  and 
beautiful,  and  was  not  dressed  in  nniform  bnt 
in  something  white  and  clean.  He  bent  down 
over  me  and  gathered  me  in  his  arms  and  all  the 
pain  left  me.  I  must  have  fallen  asleep  in  the 
comfort  of  it,  for  I  knew  nothing  more  until 
von  came.  I  am  thankful  that  I  have  been  al- 

4/ 

lowed  to  live  to  send  mv  love  to  Marcus.  Tell 
him  about  Jesus  Christ’ — and  just  as  he  said 
these  words  he  flung  his  arms  out  in  the  dark¬ 
ness  as  if  he  saw  some  one  and  wished  to  reach 
him.  Then  he  fell  back  against  me  quite  dead, 
and  I  laid  him  with  the  other  dead.  On  the  next 

dav  we  buried  them.” 

* 

The  quiet  voice  of  the  centurion  had  broken 
once  or  twice  in  the  course  of  his  story,  but  he 
did  not  linger  after  he  had  finished  nor  seem 
to  expect  any  answer  from  Marcus.  He  rose 
and  said,  “I  think  we  must  go  now  and  allow 
Festus  to  close  his  shop.”  As  they  came  into 
the  outer  room  Festus  said  “Good  night”  in 
his  friendly  way,  but,  to  the  great  relief  of  Mar¬ 
cus,  did  not  seek  to  detain  them.  Outside  the 


124  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

door,  Aulus  turned  away  with  a  simple  “  Good¬ 
bye/  ’  Marcus  could  be  alone  with  Florus. 
This  part  of  the  street  was  quiet,  and  the  eve¬ 
ning  was  calm  and  sweet,  as  if  set  free  from  the 
stains  of  the  day.  From  youth  to  youth,  from 
the  young  living  to  the  young  dead,  went  out  a 
swift  and  passionate  longing.  In  it  was  lost  all 
memory  of  the  Subura  tavern.  Marcus  went 
back  to  his  own  lodging  and  sat  alone.  He  had 
much  to  think  of.  There  was  Florus  dead  on 
a  distant  field  of  battle,  but  seeming  much 
nearer  to  him  than  he  had  seemed  during  their 
last  year  together  in  Rome.  There  was  Florus 
a  boy  in  Fori  Novi — ah,  how  close  he  came,  as 
Marcus ’s  thoughts  crept  back  and  back  through 
the  receding  years!  Was  that  his  laugh  he 
heard?  Was  that  the  smell  of  heliotrope 
crushed  under  his  feet  by  the  old  well-house? 
Suddenly  Marcus  burst  into  tears,  and  cried 
long  and  bitterly.  The  young  tears  washed  his 
heart  clean  for  the  entrance  of  a  new  shame,  a 
new  hope. 


PEACEABLE  FRUIT 


I 

“So  Domina  has  a  new  pearl  necklace!  I 
imagine  Nile  gold  has  been  spent  at  Dento’s.” 
The  speaker  laughed  cynically,  looking  around 
the  servants  ’  hall.  He  was  the  butler,  and  had 
been  waiting  on  the  table  that  evening  when 
Calpurnius  and  Felicia  had  been  dining  alone 
at  home  with  their  house  guest,  Sergius.  The 
remark  set  tongues  loose.  Since  the  evening 
was  an  easy  one,  some  of  the  servants  had  as¬ 
sembled  before  bedtime  in  their  own  comfort¬ 
able  lounging  room.  The  cellarius,  who  had  the 
keys  to  the  storeroom  and  cellar,  had  brought 
out  generous  supplies,  and  the  atriensis  who 
kept  the  family  accounts  winked  an  eye  when 
he  saw  them.  The  valet  of  Calpurnius,  two 
chambermaids,  the  young  Greek  girl  who  had 
recently  been  brought  into  the  household  to 


125 


126  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

take  care  of  the  little  daughter,  several  foot¬ 
men,  and  one  of  the  men  who  carried  the  litters 
in  the  streets  were  already  making  merry.  At 
the  mention  of  their  mistress’s  new  pearl  neck¬ 
lace  the  Greek  girl  smiled  knowingly.  “Oh, 
I’ve  seen  him  look  at  her  often  enough,”  she 
said,  “and  the  other  day  when  Dominns  was 
out  and  he  was  drinking  a  glass  of  wine  with 
Domina  in  her  private  sitting  room  (I  had  been 
telling  stories  to  the  little  mistress  on  the  other 
side  of  the  room)  I  saw  him  kiss  the  cup  just 
where  she  had  touched  it.”  “Who  is  he  any¬ 
way!”  asked  the  street  servant.  “I  took  him 
to  see  one  of  the  admirals  the  other  day.  Is  he 
high  up  in  the  Navy!”  “Yes,”  the  atriensis 
answered.  “He’s  a  prefect  of  the  flotilla  of 
coast  guards  at  the  mouth  of  the  Nile.  He  is  a 
second  cousin  of  Master’s,  and  he  hasn’t  been 
home  for  several  years.  They  had  just  been 
married  when  he  left.  He  seems  to  know  that 
Domina  has  not  lost  any  beauty  since  those 
days.”  “Is  Master  on  to  it,  do  you  think!” 
said  the  cellarius,  looking  at  the  butler.  “He’s 


PEACEABLE  FRUIT  127 

thinking  of  other  things/ ’  the  butler  answered, 
with  a  laugh  in  which  everybody  joined. 
“What’s  the  point  of  that!”  Greek  Rhoda 
asked,  flashing  her  black  coquettish  eyes  around 
the  room.  “The  point  of  that,  my  little  mag¬ 
pie,”  the  valet  answered,  “is  that  perhaps  he  is 
worrying  more  about  whether  a  certain  fair 
lady  on  the  Esquiline  will  like  the  sapphires  he 
bought  at  Dento’s  yesterday  than  how  pearls 
landed  here  on  the  Pincian.”  Rhoda ’s  face  was 
alive  with  interest.  “Who  began  it!”  she  ques¬ 
tioned  eagerly.  But  just  then  the  door  opened 
and  in  came  Felicia’s  maid,  a  girl  about  sixteen 
years  old.  Her  face  was  gentle  and  full  of 
charm,  and  the  carriage  of  her  straight  slender 
body  might  have  been  envied  by  many  a  fine  lady 
of  Rome.  She  had  acquired  it  all  unconsciously 
by  balancing  on  her  head  copper  pitchers  of 
water  in  the  Sabine  village  of  Fori  Novi  near 
which  Calpurnius  and  Felicia  had  a  country 
villa.  In  the  happy  days  of  their  marriage, 
when  they  were  still  lovers,  they  used  to  seek 
refuge  here  from  resorts  as  well  as  from  the 


128  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

city.  The  vintage  was  their  favorite  season, 

■»» 

when  great  baskets  of  grapes  glowed  against 
the  dark  soil,  and  the  pale  green  of  the  vine 
leaves.  But  last  summer  they  had  stolen  a 
month  to  enjoy  their  informal  country  garden 
wThere  flowers  and  shrubs  were  allowed  to  grow 
freely,  unhampered  by  conventional  design. 
On  the  day  of  their  arrival,  while  driving 
through  the  village,  they  had  noticed  the  beauty 
of  a  girl  who  was  drawing  water  at  the  public 
spring,  and  had  succeeded  in  attracting  her  to 
their  establishment.  The  girl’s  father  had  been 
a  slave  and  she  herself  was  willing  to  enter  the 
personal  service  of  a  lady  who  seemed  to  her 
very  lovely  and  gracious.  Her  name — oddly 
enough  for  an  Italian  girl-— was  Irene,  and 
often,  amid  the  fever  and  fret  of  Rome,  she 
seemed  to  Felicia  to  bring  a  breath  of  Sabine 
peace  and  sweetness.  Now,  as  she  entered  the 
servants’  hall,  silence  fell  as  if  no  one  wished 
to  continue  the  conversation,  but  there  were  no 
unfriendly  faces  turned  toward  her  and  she 
smiled  at  them  all  in  her  pleasant  way.  She 


PEACEABLE  FRUIT  129 

went  and  sat  down  by  little  Rhoda,  ber  tranquil 
face,  framed  in  hair  parted  simply  and  caught 
in  a  modest  knot  at  the  nape  of  her  neck,  con¬ 
trasting  sharply  with  the  vibrant,  changeful, 
piquant  face  of  the  Greek  girl,  whose  hair  curled 
across  the  tops  of  pink  ears  and  down  the  white 
brow  into  laughing  eyes.  ‘ ‘ Began  what?” 
Irene  asked,  looking  around  at  them.  There 
was  a  moment’s  hesitation,  and  then  the  atrien- 
sis  said,  ‘ 4  Well,  we  were  wondering  whether  it 
was  Dominus  or  Domina  who  first  grew  tired 
of  the  other.”  The  color  flashed  up  in  Irene’s 
face.  “We  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  ourselves,” 
she  exclaimed,  “to  talk  about  their  private  af¬ 
fairs  like  this.  They  are  good  and  kind  to 
us,  we  don’t  have  to  suffer  what  most 
households  have  to  suffer.  Look  at  you  now, 
having  all  the  wine  you  want — we  are  not 
afraid  of  being  interrupted  in  taking  our 
pleasure.  We  all  know  many  a  set  of  ser¬ 
vants  who  tremble  when  they  are  called  upon 
to  do  anything  for  their  master  or  mistress. 
But  we  like  to  serve  Dominus  and  Domina. 


130  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

They  used  to  be  so  happy  together  when  I  first 
began  to  serve  them.  It  was  the  most  beautiful 
thing  to  see  them  at  their  villa.  He  never  came 
into  the  house  without  at  once  going  to  her 
rooms.  In  the  evening  they  used  to  sit  out  on 
the  balcony  over  the  lake  and  she  would  play 
the  lute  and  sing  songs  to  him,  and  he  always 
seemed  sorry  when  any  of  the  neighbors  came 
to  call.  The  little  mistress  was  born  there,  you 
know,”  Irene  went  on,  speaking  especially  to 
Rhoda.  ‘  ‘  Even  last  summer  they  were  the 
proudest  and  happiest  people.  Domina  let 
me  take  a  great  deal  of  care  of  the  child, 
after  I  came.”  Rhoda  giggled,  and  said  in 
a  high  shrill  voice,  “Well,  she  doesn’t 
bother  you  much  with  her  now,  or  herself 
either.  Sometimes  I  should  think  she  didn’t 
know  she  had  a  child  at  all.  As  for  Dom- 
inus,  he  never  looks  at  Felicia.  ‘ ‘For  that 
matter,  how  can  he,”  the  butler  spoke  up.  “Let 
me  tell  you  that  Dominus  is  an  important  man 
in  the  city.  He  has  to  go  to  the  Palatine  every 
day.  He  is  a  director  in  the  largest  shipping 


PEACEABLE  FRUIT  131 

company  of  Rome  and  Egypt.  He  is  making 
money  fast.”  “Yes,  enough  to  buy  sapphires 
this  week  for  one  lady  and  rubies  next  week  for 
another,”  put  in  the  valet  with  a  cynical  laugh. 
“Well,  anyhow,”  the  butler  went  on,  “he  has 
no  time  to  stay  around  home  making  love  to  his 
own  wife  or  petting  a  mere  girl.”  Irene  again 
interrupted.  “Oh,  don’t,”  she  said,  “don’t  talk 
about  them  like  that.  Sometimes  I  think  some 
evil  spirit  must  have  come  into  the  house,  and 
made  them  both  unhappy.  I  know  that  Domina 
loves  her  daughter  as  much  as  she  ever  did.  It  is 
just  this  terrible  Rome.  It  somehow  gets  be¬ 
tween  husbands  and  wives,  and  mothers  and 
children.  Because  her  husband  is  important 
and  growing  rich  and  doing  big  things  she  has 
to  be  a  grand  lady,  and  she  has  to  have  grand 
friends,  and  she  can’t  always  be  around  at  bed¬ 
time,  and  she  can’t  always  spend  the  morning 
with  the  child  as  she  used  to  do.  She  has  all  of 
the  house  to  manage,  and  all  the  girls  who  do  the 
spinning  and  the  sewing,  and  she  even  has  to 
look  after  the  library  and  the  Greek  boys  who 


132 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


are  copying  the  books.  I  don’t  think  anybody 
‘began  it’ — whatever  you  mean  by  that — except 
something  wicked  in  the  air  round  about  us.  I 
wish  that  man  had  never  come  from  Egypt.  Just 
because  he  is  here  for  a  little  while  and  on  leave, 
he’s  got  plenty  of  time,  and  I  don’t  wonder  that 
he  thinks  she  is  verv  beautiful.”  Irene’s  voice 
broke  almost  into  a  sob,  and  the  cellarius 
pounded  on  the  table  with  his  cup.  “Come, 
come,”  he  said,  “don’t  let’s  spoil  this  free  even¬ 
ing  quarreling  over  our  betters.  ’Tisn’t  any  of 
our  concern  whether  they  are  happy  or  un- 
happy.  Let  them  worry  over  their  own  pearls 
and  sapphires  and  hearts  and  morals.  Here, 
Rhoda,  child,  I’ll  throw  dice  with  any  man  here 
for  one  of  your  kisses.  Let’s  take  the  hour  as 
it  comes.” 


n 

If  Irene  was  unhappy  about  her  mistress,  Fe¬ 
licia  herself  reached  that  evening  an  acute  stage 
of  misery.  Last  autumn  she  and  Calpurnius 


PEACEABLE  FRUIT 


133 


had  come  to  a  parting  of  the  ways  in  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  their  common  life.  They  were 
both  well-born,  of  the  equestrian  rank,  and  even 
distantly  affiliated  with  the  higher  aristocrats 
of  the  senatorial  order.  Felicia,  like  other  girls 
of  her  class,  had  been  fairly  well  educated  in 
literature  and  music.  The  families  on  both 
sides  had  given  many  proofs  of  Roman  con¬ 
stancy  and  courage  and  temperance,  but  the 
growing  wealth  of  Calpurnius  and  the  personal 
beauty  of  Felicia,  taken  together  with  their 
youth,  put  them  into  the  gayest  set  in  Rome. 
Neither  had  the  sternness  of  character  which 
tends  to  preserve  traditional  virtues  over 
against  the  theories  of  a  more  modern  life. 
Felicia’s  older  sister,  Honoria,  belonged  to  the 
emancipated  women  of  Rome.  She  had  even 
studied  philosophy  seriously,  and  she  had  also 
fitted  herself  to  practise  law.  Although  she 
could  not  appear  in  public  as  an  advocate,  she 
was  able  privately  to  transact  considerable 
legal  business.  This  caused  a  great  deal  of 
ridicule  in  Felicia’s  own  set,  while,  if  their 


134  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

mother  had  lived,  she  would  have  been  equally 
disturbed  by  the  self-indulgence  of  her  younger 
daughter  and  the  extraordinary  aggressive  in¬ 
dependence  of  the  older.  Between  them  they 
seemed  completely  to  have  shattered  the  family 
tradition  of  women  at  once  strong  in  mind  but 
domestic  in  habits.  Their  modern  excesses, 
however,  wTere  antipodal.  If  Honoria  forgot 
her  heart  in  her  head,  the  chief  trouble  with 
Felicia  was  that  she  never  had  any  chance  to 
think  at  all— to  see  the  trend  of  her  pleasures 
and  emotions.  Her  social  engagements  left  her 
almost  no  time  with  her  little  girl  and  they  cer¬ 
tainly  left  her  no  time  to  be  a  companion  with 
herself.  She  and  all  her  set  went  feverishly 
from  one  thing  to  another.  Even  if  it  was  not 
considered  good  form  to  have  open  scandals, 
any  more  than  it  was  to  get  drunk  in  public,  it 
was  also  considered  stupid  and  even  “ rustic’ 9 
for  husbands  and  wives  to  go  about  much  to¬ 
gether  or  to  seem  devoted  to  each  other.  Fe¬ 
licia  herself  could  not  have  told  when  the  sep¬ 
aration  between  herself  and  Calpurnius  began 


PEACEABLE  FRUIT 


135 


to  be  serious.  At  first,  perhaps,  they  had  both 
played  the  game  of  flirting  with  other  men  and 
women.  Then  Felicia  began  to  feel  that  Cal- 
purnius  was  more  than  playing  a  game.  Her 
friends  had  insinuated  things.  There  was  al¬ 
ways  somebody  to  say,  “Not  that  I  believe  it, 
dear,  but  they  are  saying.’ ’  Felicia’s  pride  was 
touched,  her  love  was  hurt,  her  jealousy 
awakened.  Just  at  this  time  Sergius  had  come 
home  from  Egypt  and  caught  her  fancy.  He 
made  love  to  her  in  a  way  that  intoxicated  her 
with  her  own  charm  and  beauty.  Until  just  now 
it  had  all  been  a  matter  of  innuendo  lurking  be¬ 
neath  badinage,  of  little  devotions  and  tender 
gallantries.  But  yesterday  he  had  kissed  the 
cup  where  she  had  touched  it  with  her  lips,  and 
after  the  child  and  her  attendant  had  been  sent 
from  the  room  he  had  kissed  her  very  lips. 
That  night,  for  the  simple  family  dinner  which 
the  withdrawal  of  an  invitation  from  some 
friends  at  the  last  moment  made  possible,  she 
had  put  on,  in  order  to  make  a  fresh  impression, 
a  string  of  pearls  which  had  belonged  to  her 


136  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

mother.  She  had  not  worn  them  for  a  long  time, 
having  taken  to  brilliant  colors  in  clothes 
and  jewels,  and  Calpurnius  must  have  for¬ 
gotten  about  the  old  heirloom.  Storming 
into  her  bedroom  that  night,  after  Irene  had 
finished  her  duties,  he  accused  her  of  receiving 
the  pearls  from  Sergius.  Shocked  because  she 
was  in  this  case  so  innocent,  and  enraged  that 
he  should  not  be  granting  her  the  liberties  which 
he  seemed  to  assume  for  himself,  she  answered 
his  frenzied  jealousy  with  frenzied  reproaches. 
All  the  evil,  ugly  thoughts  that  had  lain  dor¬ 
mant  between  them  stalked  out  into  the  open. 
Could  either  ever  forget  the  dividing  things 
that  they  said  to  one  another,  there  in  that 
room  once  consecrated  to  married  concord,  to 
mutual  fidelity? 


m 

If  Honoria  had  known  the  latest  incidents, 
probably  she  would  not  have  chosen  the  next 
day  for  a  visit  to  her  younger  sister.  For  some 


PEACEABLE  FRUIT  187 

time  she  had  been  much  troubled  by  Felicia’s 
life.  She  had  little  patience  with  people  who 
(as  she  expressed  it)  conld  not  play  the  game 
straight — -who  made  a  mess  of  their  obligations 
and  who  came  to  disaster  through  an  ungov¬ 
erned  emotionalism.  In  addition  to  this  some¬ 
what  austere  attitude,  she  had  felt  a  peculiar 
tenderness  for  Felicia  since  their  mother  died, 
and  would  have  been  glad  to  save  her  from  un¬ 
happiness.  For  herself,  she  had  never  wanted 
marriage  or  children,  but  she  understood  her 
younger  sister  well  enough  to  know  that  only 
in  a  normal  and  serene  marriage  and  its  ac¬ 
companying  home  life  could  she  find  the  ful¬ 
filment  of  her  nature.  To-day  she  came  de¬ 
termined  to  talk  the  matter  out  with  Felicia. 
To  her  surprise  she  found  her  willing  to  talk, 
but  more  intensely  bitter  than  she  had  antici¬ 
pated.  Honoria  heard  the  banal  story  of  an 
injured  wife,  angered  by  her  husband’s  injus¬ 
tice  and  jealous  of  the  liberty  claimed  for  him¬ 
self.  Felicia  was  even  in  a  mood  to  contem¬ 
plate  divorce,  and  wanted  her  sister’s  legal  ad- 


138 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


vice.  Honoria  had  expected  to  direct  appeals 
to  a  woman  given  over  to  enjoyment  and  play¬ 
ing  lightly  with  emotional  fires.  Instead  she 
found  an  oddly  cold  and  implacable  Felicia 
whom  she  scarcely  recognized.  Personally  she 
liked  Calpurnius,  and  in  general  found  it  easy 
to  take  a  man’s  point  of  view.  She  thought  that 
the  wrong  between  him  and  Felicia  was  about 
equally  divided,  and  she  was  anxious  to  bring 
about  a  reconciliation  between  them.  If  she 
failed  with  Felicia  she  meant  to  go  to  her 
brother-in-law  almost  as  man  to  man.  At  the 
end  of  her  talk  this  morning  with  her  sister,  it 
certainly  seemed  as  if  this  would  be  necessary. 
To  every  one  of  Honoria ’s  arguments  Felicia 
had  an  answer.  If  it  was  necessary  to  preserve 
the  traditions  of  the  family,  why  had  Honoria 
herself  claimed  the  right  of  a  modern  woman 
to  live  her  own  life?  If  one  woman  could  shake 
oft  social  customs  for  the  sake  of  a  career,  cer¬ 
tainly  another  woman  had  the  right  to  save  her 
own  dignity  by  getting  rid  of  a  man  who  was 
insulting  her  at  every  turn.  Again,  when  Hon- 


PEACEABLE  FRUIT  139 

oria  pleaded  for  reasonableness,  for  com¬ 
promise,  even  for  a  sense  of  justice  toward  Cal- 
purnius,  Felicia  burled  at  her  her  ignorance  of 
the  marriage  bond  and  its  implications.  And 
finally,  when  Honoria  took  her  stand  on  the 
ethical  principle  of  fulfilling  obligations  once 
assumed,  of  doing  to  the  bitter  end  one’s  duty 
by  child  if  not  by  husband,  then  Felicia  took  her 
stand  on  the  principle,  so  often  enunciated 
among  her  friends,  that  one’s  own  individual 
right  to  happiness  is  a  sacred  thing,  that  one’s 
highest  “duty”  is  a  fulfilment  of  one’s  personal 
needs.  At  last  Honoria  gave  up  the  struggle, 
and  rose  to  go.  Felicia,  in  her  charming  way, 
threw  her  arm  around  her  neck  and  kissed  her, 
and  said,  “Don’t  be  a  prude,  Honoria,  you’re 
too  clever  for  that.  Come  and  see  Felicia  be¬ 
fore  you  go.  Whatever  happens,  I’m  not  going 
to  let  her  suffer.” 

As  the  two  women  came  into  the  beautiful 
peristylum  where  early  flowers  were  being 
forced  into  bloom,  and  a  graceful  bronze  Nar¬ 
cissus  was  gazing  at  himself  in  the  basin  of  a 


140 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


silvery  fountain,  they  were  sudden  spectators, 
without  being  seen  themselves,  of  a  rather 
striking  little  domestic  incident.  Rhoda  was 
playing  with  Felicia.  Her  attendance  upon  the 
child  was  always  an  offense  to  Honoria,  who 
believed  in  the  good  old  Roman  custom,  among 
people  of  position,  of  entrusting  children  to  the 
care  of  an  older  woman,  usually  a  relative,  who 
could  transmit  even  to  little  girls  and  boys  the 
nobler  Roman  virtues  of  self-control,  dignity 
and  industry.  She  knew  the  danger  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  fashion  of  turning  at  least  the  girls  over  to 
some  young  Greek  woman,  clever,  of  course, 
and  an  admirable  teacher,  but  without  stand¬ 
ards  of  conduct.  In  her  sister’s  house  she  saw 
how  Rhoda  indulged  Felicia  in  all  her  little 
caprices,  allowing  her  to  fret  or  smile  accord¬ 
ing  to  her  passing  mood.  To  be  sure,  she  had  a 
gift  for  telling  stories  and  for  training  the  child 
to  recite  bits  of  poetry,  but  Honoria  was  enough 
of  a  Roman  not  to  be  satisfied  with  this.  At  the 
present  moment,  both  Rhoda  and  the  child  were 
dancing  up  and  down,  clapping  their  hands  and 


PEACEABLE  FRUIT 


141 


laughing  at  a  young  boy  who,  harrying  past 
them,  as  if  in  answer  to  a  summons,  had  tripped 
over  an  obstacle,  evidently  set  up  by  Rhoda, 
and  lay  sprawling  on  the  mosaic  pavement. 
Felicia  recognized  him  as  her  newest  house- 
slave  recently  brought  from  the  farm  at  Fori 
Novi.  Of  course,  as  the  latest  comer,  he  would 
be  the  butt  of  all  the  other  servants  and  the 
victim  of  many  practical  jokes.  Ordinarily  she 
would  have  thought  nothing  of  the  occurrence, 
although  she  did  dislike  seeing  her  own  little 
daughter  imitating  the  jeers  and  harsh  laughter 
of  Rhoda.  But  just  then,  Irene,  coming  from 
the  atrium ,  stepped  around  one  of  the  columns 
of  the  peristylum  and  entered  the  group.  The 
boy,  who  was  about  ten  years  old,  turned 
toward  her  with  such  a  wistful  and  yearning 
expression  that  it  stirred  the  hearts  of  both 
Felicia  and  Honoria.  Irene’s  face  looked  very 
sweet  to  them  as  she  put  her  hand  on  the  boy’s 
shoulder  and  smiled  at  him,  and  straightened 
his  tunic  and  told  him  not  to  worry,  that  he 
would  soon  be  happy  in  this  house  where  all  the 


142 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


servants  were  happy  working  for  a  kind  master 
and  mistress.  The  little  scene  made  an  impres¬ 
sion  upon  both  women.  Honoria  was  struck,  as 
she  always  was,  by  Irene’s  quiet  composure  and 
tranquilizing  manner.  As  she  went  oft  she 
thought  to  herself  that  her  little  sister,  in  spite 
of  being  so  grand  a  lady,  was  not  unlike  the 
young  house-slave,  tripping  over  an  obstacle 
and  needing  to  he  picked  up  and  comforted  by 
some  strong  and  gentle  hand.  Her  heart  was 
heavy  as  she  went  back  to  her  litter  to  he  car¬ 
ried  on  to  the  Forum  where  she  had  an  impor¬ 
tant  appointment.  She  had  failed  utterly  in 
her  family  errand,  and  was  afraid  of  what 
might  happen  even  before  another  day. 

What  Felicia  saw  in  the  incident  led  to  an 
amazing  thing.  In  spite  of  her  black  mood,  she 
remained  mistress  of  her  household,  and  she 
wondered  why  her  maid  took  so  much  pains  to 
help  the  new  slave.  With  this  thought  in  mind 
she  called  Irene  to  come  to  her  room  to  look 
over  the  dress  which  she  wished  to  wear  that 
evening.  Its  grapevine  embroidery  needed  to 


PEACEABLE  FRUIT  143 

be  retouched  here  and  there — it  was  to  be  worn 
with  the  amethysts  and  topazes  which  seemed 
to  carry  the  color  of  the  purple  and  amber 
grapes.  She  had  been  willing  to  wear  the  dress 
an  unusual  number  of  times  because  of  the  as¬ 
sociations  of  its  design  with  the  vintage  at  Fori 
Novi.  To-day  the  dress  served  as  a  starting 
point  for  asking  Irene  some  questions.  They 
began  with  the  new  boy — why  was  Irene  so  good 
to  him?  The  maid  told  her  that  she  knew  just 
the  little  cabin  on  the  farm  that  the  boy  came 
from,  and  knew  his  mother  and  the  family  of 
brothers  and  sisters  he  had  left  behind,  and  the 
baby  kid  which  belonged  especially  to  him  and 
which  he  missed  so  much  in  the  large  city  house 
where  nothing  was  his  own,  and  he  himself  was 
at  the  beck  and  call  of  everybody.  Felicia, 
leaning  back  upon  the  yellow  silk  cushions 
which  were  an  admirable  foil  for  her  soft  dark 
hair,  watched  the  skilful  hands  of  her  maid  at 
the  embroidery  frame.  “Irene,”  she  said  pres¬ 
ently,  abruptly  leaving  the  conversation  she  had 
started — “Irene,  your  embroidery  really  ought 


144  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

to  be  exhibited.  Don’t  you  want  me  to  get  you 
into  the  procession  of  skilled  workers  at  the 
next  festival  of  Minerva!  You  must  be  a  prime 
favorite  of  hers.  Did  you  use  to  say  your 
prayers  to  her  especially  in  the  temple  at 
home!”  A  tide  of  color  swept  into  the  girl’s 
face.  She  looked  at  her  mistress  with  wide- 
open,  startled  eyes.  Then,  as  if  nerving  her¬ 
self  to  a  great  effort,  she  said:  “Last  summer, 
just  before  I  came  to  you,  I  stopped  going  to 
the  temple  altogether,  and  I  can’t  say  prayers 
any  longer  to  Minerva  because  I  have  learned 
to  love  Jesus  Christ.”  Felicia  looked  at  her 
with  amazement.  “And  who,  child,  is  Jesus 
Christ!”  she  said.  “What  has  he  to  do  with 
your  prayers!”  And  then  Irene  told  Felicia 
the  story  as  she  had  had  it  from  Sabina,  the 
wife  of  the  baker  at  Fori  Novi.  Sabina  had  lost 
her  only  son  in  the  war  over  in  Armenia  and 
had  been  almost  dying  with  grief  until  a  letter 
came  from  him  which  explained  to  her  about 
Jesus  Christ,  and  made  her  able  to  pick  up  her 
life  again,  and  to  be  cheerful  and  courageous 


PEACEABLE  FRUIT 


145 


and  help  everybody  round  about  in  the  village. 
Felicia  listened  with  growing  interest.  <  ‘  Irene,  ’  ’ 
she  said,  “if  Sabina  wanted  this  Jesus  Christ 
you  talk  about  to  comfort  her  for  her  son,  what 
did  you  want  of  him?”  Irene  stretched  her 
hand  out  toward  the  purple  embroidery  silks 
and  took  a  needleful  as  she  answered,  “I  am 
afraid  Domina  will  be  bored  by  my  poor  little 
affairs,  but  I  was  very  unhappy  when  Sabina 
came  to  help  me.  My  mother  had  died  and  my 
father  had  married  again,  and  I  found  it  very 
hard  to  live  with  my  stepmother,  she  was  so 
different  from  the  rest  of  us.  I  used  to  cry 
myself  to  sleep  at  night  and  I  was  tired  and 
unhappy  all  day  long.”  “You  tired  and  un¬ 
happy,”  Felicia  interjected.  “Why,  what 
caught  me  first  in  your  face  was  its  look  of 
happiness,  and  ever  since  you  have  lived  with 
me  you  have  seemed  so  full  of  peace  and  sweet¬ 
ness  and  contentment.  You  haven’t  changed 
just  because  you  live  with  us.  I  wanted  you  be¬ 
cause  you  were  so  happy  when  I  found  you. 
Go  on  and  tell  me  what  Sabina  did  to  help  you.” 


146  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAT 

Irene  smiled  shyly.  4 ‘She  told  me,”  she  said, 
“that  everything  would  come  out  all  right  if  I 
acted  toward  my  stepmother  exactly  as  I  would 
if  I  loved  her  and  if  she  loved  me.  She  was  so 
sure  about  Jesus  Christ  that  I  couldn’t  help 
believing  that  he  was  real,  and  she  told  me  that 
the  only  thing  he  wanted  of  us  was  to  love  each 
other.  She  said  that  if  I  forgot  all  the  differ¬ 
ences  in  my  stepmother  and  just  tried  to  love 
her  I  would  love  her,  and  that  when  I  loved  her 
everything  would  come  out  right  and  true  and 
happy. ’ ’  “And  did  it?”  Felicia  asked.  “Oh, 
Domina!”  Irene  said,  dropping  her  silks  and 
the  embroidery  frame,  and  turning  toward  her 
mistress  with  her  hands  stretched  out  appeal¬ 
ingly.  “Oh,  Domina,  it  came  so  beautifully 
true.  It  was  just  love  I  needed  to  feel,  and  then 
father  was  happy  and  my  two  little  sisters  were 
happy  and  my  stepmother  was  happy  and  I  was 
happy.  My  heart  sang  all  day  long  and  the 
world  was  so  beautiful  and  when  you  came 
that  day  by  the  fountain  it  was  all  part  of 
the  happiness.  You  were  so  gracious  and 


PEACEABLE  FRUIT  147 

you  have  been  so  kind  to  me  ever  since,  and 
there  can't  be  anything  the  matter  if  people  just 
love  each  other.  Nothing  else  makes  any  dif¬ 
ference  except  love.”  The  girl  caught  herself 
abruptly  as  if  she  had  gone  too  far  and  plunged 
her  hand  back  into  the  silken  threads.  Silence 
fell  in  the  room.  In  the  heart  of  Felicia  a 
strange  thing  began  to  happen.  Some  sweet 
alchemy  seemed  to  be  transforming  the  bitter¬ 
ness  that  had  been  lying  there  so  heavily.  Hon- 
oria  had  begged  her  to  be  reasonable,  to  be  just, 
to  be  dutiful,  but  how  could  she  be  when  Cal- 
purnius  had  been  so  unjust  and  so  unreason¬ 
able  toward  her,  and  so  forgetful  of  his  own 
duty?  But  now,  what  was  it  Irene  was  saying? 
— Irene  sitting  over  there  so  quietly — Irene, 
whose  voice  always  soothed  her,  whose  hands 
were  always  gentle,  whose  face  was  always 
happy.  She  didn’t  need  to  be  reasonable 
toward  her  husband,  or  just.  She  didn't  need 
to  do  her  duty  by  him.  She  needed  only  to  love 
him — to  act  as  if  she  loved  him,  and  then  every¬ 
thing  would  come  right.  What  a  strange,  new, 


148 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


and  yet  sweet,  thing  this  was !  Should  she  try 
it?  Of  course,  the  ‘ 4  Jesus  Christ”  of  it  was  all 
a  mystery,  some  new  superstition,  perhaps, 
among  the  common  people,  hut  this  idea  of  love, 
love  so  simple,  so  easy  to  act  upon  immediately, 
as  soon  as  Calpurnius  came  back  into  the  house 
— should  she  not  yield  herself  to  it,  put  it  to  the 
test? 

At  this  moment  she  heard  her  husband  step 
past  her  door.  In  the  old  days  he  would  have 
sought  her  at  once  when  he  returned  to  the 
house.  Waves  of  memory  broke  over  her, 
swelling  into  a  floodtide  of  determination  to  act 
as  she  would  have  done  when  they  loved  each 
other.  She  sprang  from  her  couch,  hurried  to 
the  door  and  opened  it.  “Dear  heart,’ ’  she 
said,  flinging  wide  her  arms,  “welcome  home!” 
Her  husband’s  arms  closed  about  her.  A  broken 
murmur  came  from  the  lips  buried  in  her  hair. 
Irene  slipped  away  unnoticed,  with  a  little 
smile  on  her  face  and  in  her  heart  a  quick  little 
prayer  of  thanksgiving  to  Jesus  Christ. 


A  MORE  EXCELLENT  WAY 


I 

Two  Greeks  were  driving  back  to  Rome,  after 
dining  with  Seneca  at  his  villa  on  the  Appian 
Wav.  Their  open  gig,  hired  from  a  station 
just  within  the  Porta  Capena,  was  a  poor  pro¬ 
tection  against  the  cold  wind  which  blew  in  raw, 
fitful  gusts.  Huge  black  clouds  flapped  across 
the  sky  like  gigantic  bats,  and  the  tombs  which 
lined  the  great  highway  looked  twice  their 
natural  size.  The  gloom  was  oppressive  and 
even  the  Cynic  philosopher,  Demetrius,  and  the 
skeptic  Theophilus  involuntarily  felt  glad  of 
each  other’s  company  as  their  one  horse  picked 
his  way  uncertainly  along  the  shadowy  road 
toward  the  unseen  city. 

After  a  silence  Theophilus,  relaxing  a  little 
his  tense  hold  on  the  reins,  said:  “Did  vou  no- 
tice  how  quiet  Seneca  was  at  dinner!  and  how 

149 


150  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

depressed  he  seemed  afterwards  when  he  was 
talking  with  his  nephew?”  “Yes,”  said  Deme¬ 
trius,  “I  felt  the  grim  presence  of  fear  there — 
not  a  personal  fear,  because  these  Romans, 
whatever  their  philosophy,  always  show  an  ex¬ 
traordinary  courage  when  they  are  in  the  grip 
of  hostile  circumstance — but  the  more  name¬ 
less  fear  that  haunts  the  good  in  days  of  evil.” 
“Do  yon  mean  the  Emperor  and  his  hench¬ 
men?”  Theophilus  asked.  “No,”  the  philoso¬ 
pher  answered  quickly,  “I  mean  injustice  and 
unreason  and  greed  and  lust — I  mean  all  the 
poisons  that  are  sucking  the  life  from  the  soul 
of  humanity.  Men  like  Seneca,  who  com¬ 
promise,  are  afraid  beneath  their  armor  of 
wisdom.  Only  Thrasea  faces  the  Stygian  black¬ 
ness  with  a  limitless  tranquillity.”  “Tran¬ 
quillity!”  the  Athenian  exclaimed,  “your  tran¬ 
quillity,  your  apathy,  your  eradication  of  de¬ 
sire  appal  me.  Is  there  to  be  no  warm  pas¬ 
sion,  no  joy,  no  light  in  our  existence?” 

Just  as  Theophilus  spoke,  at  a  sudden  on- 


A  MOKE  EXCELLENT  WAY 


151 


slaught  of  shrieking  wind  the  horse  reared  in 
terror.  Emerging  dimly  from  the  darkness, 
they  recognized  the  outlines  of  the  temple  of 
Mars  the  Avenger,  close  outside  the  city  gate. 
Demetrius  watched  the  horse  quiet  down,  and 
then  said,  half  lightly:  “ After  all,  Mars  is  the 
God  of  our  day  and  generation.  Most  of  our 
light  comes  from  his  horrid  glare.  ”  Theophi- 
lus  remained  intent  upon  his  driving,  and  pres¬ 
ently  drew  up  at  the  carriage  station  within  the 
city  limits.  From  there  the  two  friends  were  to 
walk  to  their  lodgings.  A  lout  of  a  boy,  evi¬ 
dently  waked  from  sleep  by  their  call,  came  out 
to  take  the  horse,  but  could  not  tell  them  how 
much  they  owed,  nor  answer  their  questions 
about  the  direction  of  the  streets.  His  master, 
he  said,  was  in  the  house  opposite,  where  the 
light  was.  “Drinking  late,  I  suppose,’ ’  said 
Theophilus,  as  he  started  to  cross  the  street, 
“but  he’ll  probably  be  able  to  take  in  his 
money.”  “Don’t  forget,”  Demetrius  called 
after  him — “don’t  forget  to  ask  the  way.” 


152 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


II 

The  interruptions  at  their  honse-door,  inci¬ 
dent  to  the  neighborhood,  always  disturbed  Fes- 
tus  more  than  they  did  his  mother,  Anna.  The 
house  showed  a  simple  and  modest  refinement, 
as  if  harmony  were  the  principle  of  Festus’s 
daily  life  whether  among  the  lyres  and  flutes  in 
his  workshop  on  the  Via  Sacra  or  here  at  home 
under  the  shadow  of  the  great  gateway.  It  was 
oddly  placed  in  a  noisy,  restless  neighborhood, 
where  travelers  leaving  or  coming  into  the  city 
by  the  Appian  Way  were  likely  to  halt  on  all 
sorts  of  errands.  Directly  opposite  was  the 
station  owned  by  Nicys,  at  which  horses  and 
carriages  for  a  journey  could  be  obtained  and 
exchanged.  Shops  catering  to  every  need 
crowded  in  and  fastened  like  leeches  upon  the 
passing  tourists.  Eating  houses  and  wine 
rooms  of  various  grades  sought  the  patronage 
of  senators  or  slave.  All  day  long  and  into  the 
night  the  street  and  alley  ways  were  vocal  with 
shrill  cries  and  resounded  with  the  clattering 


A  MORE  EXCELLENT  WAY  153 

feet  of  horses  and  mules.  But  the  house  of 
Festus  preserved  within  itself  a  quiet  apart¬ 
ness. 

In  the  eyes  of  their  friends  this  apartness 
seemed  as  characteristic  of  Anna  as  of  Festus. 
But  when  any  demand  came  from  without,  her 
courtesy  turned  toward  it  as  serenely  as  the 
needle  to  its  magnet,  while  his  seemed  rather 
to  leap,  with  a  valiant  effort,  to  its  post.  Anna 
was  no  longer  young.  Her  hair  was  gray, 
parted  in  the  middle  and  curving  across  a  low 
sensitive  brow,  but  her  skin  was  smooth  and 
tender,  like  a  child’s,  with  a  little  flush  in  her 
cheeks  like  a  pale  pink  rose.  Her  body  was 
slender  and  small  and  graceful  like  the  stem  of 
a  birch-tree  in  a  soft  winter  landscape.  Her 
ways  were  so  courteous  that  even  a  chance  ac¬ 
quaintance  felt  especially  singled  out  by  her 
for  consideration.  She  never  made  any  dif¬ 
ference  between  people,  because  her  manners 
clung  to  her  as  a  quality  of  her  own,  not  to  be 
changed  by  the  attitude  of  others. 

To-night  through  the  storm  into  this  place  of 


154  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

quiet  had  come  an  intimate  group  of  men  and 
women  to  eat  supper  together  and  to  exchange 
confidences  about  their  “new  way.”  Only  Nicys 
and  Eucarpia,  near  neighbors,  were  being  wel¬ 
comed  for  the  first  time  at  such  a  gathering. 
He  was  a  big,  burly  fellow,  with  a  rubicund  face 
between  large  projecting  ears,  and  a  bass  voice 
which,  until  a  few  months  ago,  had  boomed 
abroad  the  high  spirits  of  a  prosperous  man 
free  from  troubles.  Then  Fortune,  the  jade, 
had  turned  against  him.  His  wife,  after  fifteen 
years  of  health  and  devotion  to  him  and  his 
business,  had  sickened  mysteriously.  She  was 
always  tired  now,  and,  worse  still,  she  seemed 
tired  of  him.  He  had  seen  her  shrink  sensi¬ 
tively  when  he  came  into  the  house  from  the 
stables,  instead  of  hurrying  to  him  as  in  the 
old  days  as  soon  as  he  shouted  from  the  thresh¬ 
old.  In  his  growing  despair  he  had  come  to 
Anna,  who  had  more  common  sense  than  any 
woman  he  knew.  There  was  no  nonsense  about 
her.  You  could  talk  straight  out  to  her,  even 
if  she  did  look  so  gentle  and  so  modest.  She 


A  MORE  EXCELLENT  WAY  155 

had  already  made  things  much  better  for  him  at 
home  just  by  coming  often.  When  she  was 
there  Eucarpia  seemed  different,  friendly  again 
and  more  attentive  to  what  he  was  saying  about 
the  business — and  what  with  the  stupid  pos¬ 
tilions,  and  the  disease  that  had  struck  the 
horses,  and  the  stormy  weather  of  this  slow 
spring  there  was  certainly  enough  to  talk  over 
when  he  could  get  a  sensible  ear.  Nicys  did 
not  know  that  every  nerve  in  Eucarpia ’s  body, 
exhausted  by  his  boisterous  energy,  had  sooth¬ 
ing  from  the  quietness  of  Anna.  Nor  was  he 
conscious  that  his  own  self-confidence  grew  less 
flamboyant  in  paying  tribute  to  her  inner  power. 
He  would  have  said  that  he  valued  in  her  a  di¬ 
rect  and  penetrating  common  sense.  In  reality 
he  was  chiefly  influenced  by  a  superiority  of  na¬ 
ture  as  potent  with  other  people  as  it  was  un¬ 
realized  by  her.  But,  at  any  rate,  he  was 
devoted  to  her  and  quite  willing  to  accept  with 
his  wife  an  invitation  to  a  special  kind  of  sup¬ 
per  and  meeting. 

Eucarpia  had  never  seen  a  room  quite  as  rest- 


156 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


ful  as  the  one  in  which  they  were  eating.  The 
lamps  in  the  corners  on  tall,  plain  standards  and 
the  lower  ones  set  on  the  table  were  so  pleasant 
to  look  at — she  wondered  if  they  cost  a  great 
deal  more  than  the  clumsy  lot  which  Nicys  had 
bought  for  their  last  supply  at  home.  The  mix¬ 
ing  bowl  and  wine  cups,  too,  had  such  pretty 
shapes,  although  they  were  only  earthen  ware, 
like  her  own.  The  food  seemed  tempting  to  her 
— the  fine  wheat  bread  and  fresh  asparagus  in 
place  of  the  greasy  platters  of  sausages  and 
bacon  to  which  she  was  wearily  accustomed. 
On  the  wall  opposite  her  in  the  central  panel 
was  painted  a  beautiful  picture.  Her  friendly 
neighbor  at  the  table,  Lucius,  told  her  that  it 
had  been  done  by  a  good  Greek  artist,  and  was 
a  birthday  present  to  Festus  from  a  jeweler 
whose  child  he  had  healed  and  who  had  become 
his  ardent  friend.  Festus  had  chosen  the  sub¬ 
ject.  It  showed  a  young  Orpheus,  debonair  and 
joyous,  playing  his  lyre  under  an  olive  tree  on  a 
hillside  and  drawing  the  birds  and  beasts  of  the 
wood  to  him  by  the  lure  of  his  music.  “He  is 


A  MORE  EXCELLENT  WAY  157 

like  Jesus  Christ,  ”  Lucius  added  with  a  smile. 
Jesus  Christ — it  was  really  to  hear  more  of 
him,  of  whom  Anna  would  talk  only  with  great 
reserve,  that  Eucarpia  had  wanted  to  come 
to-night. 

Nicys  had  no  eye  for  the  refinements  of  the 
room.  But  after  supper  he  became  intensely 
interested  in  some  letters  from  Antioch  and 
Ephesus  and  Corinth  which  Festus  read,  ex¬ 
plaining  to  him  that  they  came  from  other 
“  Christians,  ”  their  “  brothers  in  Christ.” 
They  were  written  in  Greek,  but  had  been  trans¬ 
lated  before  the  meeting  by  one  of  the  guests, 
Matho,  a  Greek  government  slave  and  copyist 
in  the  Palatine  Library.  And  they  proved  to 
be  full  of  amazing  references  to  a  city  of  God 
in  which  citizenship  did  not  depend  upon  Ro¬ 
man  law,  and  to  a  family  of  God  in  which  all 
were  sons  and  daughters,  brothers  and  sisters, 
whether  they  lived  in  Rome  or  in  Greece  or  in 
Syria. 

Nicys  was  by  no  means  a  stupid  man  and  his 
business  brought  him  into  contact  with  all  kinds 


158 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


of  travelers.  His  imagination — although  he 
would  have  not  known  how  to  say  so — was  al¬ 
ways  being  drawn  out  through  the  gates  of  the 
city,  along  the  great  highways,  toward  places 
very  remote  from  his  corner  of  Rome.  Now, 
as  Festus  was  reading,  he  was  suddenly  caught 
by  a  fascinated  wonder.  What  was  this  strange 
“ news’ ’  that  traveled  back  and  forth  over  the 
long  roads  and  across  the  seas  of  the  Empire? 
Save  for  his  faith  in  Anna  he  might  have 
listened  suspiciously,  smelling  treason  or  at 
least  the  wordy  extravagance  of  fools.  But 
trusting  her  as  he  did  he  was  more  beset  by 
curiosity.  Whatever  it  was,  this  traveled 
“ news’ ’  filled  these  people  'with  an  extraordi¬ 
nary  joy.  They  seemed  enthusiastic  and  buoy¬ 
ant — like  men  whose  business  is  never  slack. 
The  idea  occurred  to  him  in  this  way  because 
he  realized  with  surprise  that  they  had  some 
business  or  interest  in  common.  Before  coming 
over  this  evening  he  had  wondered  why  mem¬ 
bers  of  different  trade-guilds  wanted  to  get  to¬ 
gether.  But  here  were  Festus  and  Lucius,  for 


A  MORE  EXCELLENT  WAY 


159 


example,  sharing  something  that  seemed  as 
close — or  was  it  closer?— -to  each  than  his  own 
craft.  They  were  not  talking  of  their  daily  rou¬ 
tine  or  even,  with  an  enlarged  importance,  of 
the  general  affairs  of  their  guilds,  but  about  a 
new  faith,  a  new  hope,  a  new  love.  Dimly  Nicys 
guessed  at  the  situation.  No  one  of  these  men 
and  women  held  this  faith  composedly  as  an 
inheritance  or  a  part  of  family  tradition 
Rather,  each  had  won  it  as  an  individual  posses¬ 
sion,  in  an  emotional  crisis  of  life.  To  some, 
perhaps,  it  had  come  full  flowered,  while  in  the 
hearts  of  others  it  had  dropped  like  a  seed  to 
fructify  in  the  daily  ways  of  living ;  but  to  all, 
certainly,  it  was  a  new  thing,  a  break  from  the 
old  order  of  thought,  a  wonder  still  and  a  high 
romance.  These  people  came  together  just  be¬ 
cause  they  could  not  help  sharing  with  each 
other  a  discovery  which  to  them  seemed  full  of 
power,  of  sweetness,  of  joy.  Their  frankness 
was  not  the  easy  babbling  of  sentimentalists, 
but  the  welling  of  clear  streams  of  feeling 
across  the  barriers  of  ordinary  reserve. 


160 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


Nicys  looked  at  Eucarpia  across  tlie  table  and 
saw  her  bead  erect,  her  eyes  shining,  as  he  had 
not  seen  them  for  many  a  day.  He  looked  at 
Anna,  and  she  smiled  at  him  in  a  way  that  set 
him  at  ease  and  welcomed  him  among  these 
friends  of  her  house.  Anna  never  put  any  ob¬ 
stacle  in  your  way,  least  of  all  herself.  She 
had  not  joined  in  the  conversation,  but  now  she 
turned  to  her  son  and  suggested  the  singing  of 
a  hymn — “one  of  peace  at  the  heart  of  storms,’ ’ 
she  said,  the  rose  color  in  her  cheeks  deepening 
with  the  betrayal  of  an  inward  thought.  Festus 
sent  a  boy  for  his  lyre.  A  blast  of  wind  pierced 
shriekingly  into  the  room,  and  withdrew  in  a 
sullen  howl.  Festus  rose  suddenly  and 
stretched  out  his  hands  in  a  compelling  gesture. 
Then  he  prayed  as  Nicys  had  never  heard  any¬ 
one  pray  before.  He  was  not  placating  his 
God,  but  laying  his  soul  bare  before  him.  In  the 
flood  of  his  desire  all  formulas  seemed  swept 
away.  Passionately  he  pleaded  that  the  way 
might  be  made  clear  to  all  who  traveled  in  dark¬ 
ness.  Nicys  thought  of  the  throng  without 


A  MORE  EXCELLENT  WAY  161 

— how  well  he  knew  it  on  such  a  night ! — search¬ 
ing,  stumbling,  cursing,  through  the  stormy 
streets.  What  was  this  that  Festus  was  saying? 
— “We  ask  it  in  the  name  of  him  who  is  the 
way  and  the  truth  and  the  life. ?  ?  It  was  the 
end  of  the  prayer,  and  Nicys  felt  as  if  some 
incommunicable  strain  of  music  had  come  to  a 
sudden  end,  without  being  resolved. 

The  boy  had  brought  the  lyre,  but  Festus, 
with  a  look  at  his  mother,  suggested  that  they 
should  go  to  the  atrium  where  they  could  sing 
with  greater  ease.  Matho  had  translated  still 
another  psalm  since  their  last  meeting,  and  he 
had  set  the  words  to  his  instrument. 

“He  that  dwelleth  in  the  secret  place  of  the  Most 
High” 

— the  preliminary  notes  rose  in  his  vibrant 
tenor  as  he  led  the  way  into  the  larger  room. 

But  for  Nicys  and  Eucarpia  the  magical  even¬ 
ing  proved  to  be  at  an  end.  As  the  singers  were 
gathering  around  the  host  to  examine  his  new 
score,  a  quick  draught  of  wind  betrayed  the 


162 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


opening  of  the  house  door.  The  porter  tiptoed 
in  and  informed  Nicys  that  a  traveler  had  come 
over  from  the  stables  and  insisted  on  seeing 
him.  It  seemed  considerate  to  make  their  fare¬ 
wells  now,  instead  of  disturbing  the  music 
afresh,  even  though  they  must  leave  a  message 
for  Anna  who  had  not  yet  come  from  the  dining 
room.  Nicys,  with  unusual  gentleness,  ex¬ 
pressed  his  regret  to  Eucarpia  as  they  put  on 
their  rain  cloaks.  She  smiled  in  her  old  way 
and  slipped  her  fingers  into  his  palm.  “It  is 
our  business,  isn’t  it,”  she  said,  “to  make  the 
way  easier  for  travelers?”  The  porter  opened 
the  door  upon  an  impatient  Greek  voice  in  the 
street  anathematizing  the  darkness.  He  closed 
it  upon  a  strain  from  the  inner  room  high  and 
clear : 

‘ 1  Thou  shalt  not  be  afraid  for  the  terror  by  night.  ’ 9 

III 

Anna  had  stayed  behind  to  give  some  gentle 
order  to  the  maid — the  household  was  served 


A  MORE  EXCELLENT  WAY 


163 


with  great  simplicity — who  came  to  set  the 
room  in  order.  Lucius  lingered  to  talk  with 
her  as  he  often  did.  Of  all  the  Christians  whom 
he  knew,  men  or  women,  she  seemed  to  him  to 
have  most  completely  made  her  own  the  star 
which  was  in  the  gift  of  Jesus  Christ.  His  own 
sensitive  nature  felt  in  her  something  more  del¬ 
icately  made  than  himself  and  at  the  same  time 
something  so  high,  so  starry  that  his  friendship 
with  her  was  mingled  with  a  profound  rever¬ 
ence.  He,  or  Nicys,  or  whoever  drew  near  her, 
became  her  beneficiary.  She  never  talked  about 
unselfishness,  never  seemed  conscious  of  doing 
her  duty  by  other  people,  was  only  perplexed  • 
and  even  a  little  distressed  if  people  told  her 
that  she  helped  them.  "When  Narcissus  had 
said  once  that  he  thought  that  you  should  as¬ 
sure  yourself  every  night  before  you  went  to 
bed  that  you  had  helped  somebody,  she  had 
seemed  startled.  “But  how  can  IV 7  she  said  to 
Lucius  afterwards.  “How  can  we  ever  be  sure 
that  we  help  each  other?”  And  yet  among  all 
the  men  and  women  who  believed  in  this  new 


164 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


religion  of  Love,  nobody  seemed  to  love  as  com¬ 
pletely  as  Anna  did.  It  must  have  been  a  na¬ 
tive  endowment,  Lucius  concluded,  born  with 
her  in  her  cradle  as  physical  beauty  is  born,  and 
then  cultivated  and  increased  a  hundredfold  by 
the  power  of  Jesus  Christ  within  her.  None 
who  knew  Paul  wondered  that  even  he  turned 
to  Anna  on  terms  of  peculiar  personal  intimacy. 

To-night  Lucius  wanted  especially  to  ask  her 
about  the  imprisoned  leader  whom  he  had  not 
been  able  to  visit  for  some  time.  There  was  a 
boom  in  the  building  trades  and  he  had  been 
working  almost  more  hours  than  there  were  in 
a  day.  A  little  shadow  fell  over  Anna’s  face. 
“I  saw  him  only  this  afternoon,”  she  said, 
“and  I  found  him  very  tired  and  very  sad. 
Who  do  you  suppose  had  been  to  see  him? 
Honoria,  the  sister  of  the  lovely  young  Felicia 
— I  think  you  were  here  one  evening  when  she 
came.  It  was  very  fine  of  her  to  let  her  maid 
bring  her,  and  we  all  thought  her  exquisitely 
courteous-— do  you  remember?  I  have  seen 
something  of  her,  and  also  at  her  house  I  have 


A  MORE  EXCELLENT  WAY  165 

met  the  sister.  I  had  heard  that  Honoria  was 
very  learned  and  clever,  bnt  she  met  me  the  first 
time  in  a  simple,  natural  way,  and  I  felt  at  once 
for  her  a  strong  liking.  Since  then  we  have 
had  several  talks — I  have  found  it  unusually 
easy  to  talk  with  her  because  she  is  so  honest. 
I  knew  that  she  had  been  very  happy  over  her 
sister,  but  I  never  dreamed  that  she  would 
herself  go  to  see  Paul.  She  had  just  left  him 
when  I  arrived.  He  seemed  more  depleted  than 
I  have  found  him  after  arguments  and  discus¬ 
sions  with  the  Jews.  In  surprise  I  said  to  him, 
‘But,  if  she  came  at  all,  she  must  have  been  will¬ 
ing  to  receive.  She  was  not  defiant,  was  slier 
‘No,  no,*  he  said  wearily  enough,  ‘but  she  held 
out  the  wrong  cup  to  be  filled.  She  brought  me 
her  intellect,  and  to  that  Jesus  crucified  is  but  a 
stumbling  block  and  foolishness.’  ” 

Lucius  leaned  forward,  eager  to  listen,  and  as 
the  tender  music  swelled  a  little  more  loudly 
through  the  open  door,  seeming,  as  it  were,  to 
isolate  and  protect  them  in  their  comprehen¬ 
sion  of  each  other,  Anna  told  him,  as  she  had 


166  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

told  no  one  else,  not  even  her  son,  of  the  hour 
of  agony  through  which  she  had  sat  with  Paul. 
To  Lucius,  because  of  his  humility,  she  could 
entrust  the  torture  of  a  great  soul.  Fevered 
and  uncontrolled  as  Anna  had  rarely  seen  him, 
walking  up  and  down  the  room  without  his  usual 
regard  for  the  soldier  who  must  walk  with  him, 
their  leader  had  poured  out  to  her  in  burning 
words  how  Honoria,  searching  for  his  ideas, 
had  entirely  missed  the  central  passion  of  his 
life,  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all  his  think¬ 
ing.  He  had  not  made  Jesus  Christ  real  to  her. 
His  own  passion  had  evidently  sobbed  itself  out 
to  Anna  as  if  he  had  betrayed  his  Master,  as  if 
he  had  crucified  him  afresh,  in  failing  to  stamp 
his  image  forever  on  one  more  human  heart. 

But  that  had  not  been  all.  If  the  immensity 
of  his  regret  seemed  far  to  transcend  the  im¬ 
portance  of  Honoria,  it  was  because  Honoria’s 
state  of  mind  had  widened  out  for  him  into 
sweeping  memories  of  his  own  past.  Once  he, 
too,  had  relied  upon  the  intellect,  immured  him¬ 
self  within  the  understanding,  measured  the 


A  MORE  EXCELLENT  WAY 


167 


ways  of  God  by  the  learning  of  men.  And  what 
bad  been  tbe  result?  He  had  persecuted  and 
denied  Jesus  Christ  in  the  persons  of  his  fol¬ 
lowers.  He  had  breathed  out  fire  and  slaughter 
against  those  whom  he  should  most  have  loved. 
He  had  been  4 ‘exceeding  mad”  against  those 
whose  feet  he  should  have  washed  in  humility 
and  reverence. 

Sin — sin — the  sin  of  his  blindness — not  even 
Christ  could  forever  wash  away  the  memories 
of  it.  Only  when  he  was  suffering  for  Christ, 
stoned  or  beaten  with  rods,  hungering  or  thirst¬ 
ing,  subjected  to  perils  of  land  or  sea,  knowing 
weariness  or  painfulness — only  then  could  he 
feel  at  peace.  And  here*  in  Rome,  well-treated, 
although  in  prison,  fed  and  clothed,  the  victim 
of  no  sudden  peril  by  day  or  night,  there  were 
hours  when  the  madness  of  remorse  had  its  way 
with  him.  Honoria,  for  all  her  responsive  cour¬ 
tesy,  had  created  for  him  such  an  hour.  At  its 
close — so  he  told  Anna — all  he  could  see  was  the 
face  of  Stephen,  looking  like  an  angel  when  they 
stoned  him,  and  himself  holding  their  garments 


168  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

that  they  might  the  quicker  kill  him.  Yes, 
Anna  said  to  Lucius,  it  had  been  a  cruel  time 
for  Paul,  and  she  dreaded  the  night  ahead  for 
him — sleepless,  probably,  tortured  by  hatred  of 
himself,  agonized  by  thoughts  of  the  world’s 
blindness,  exhausted  by  the  futility  of  his  yearn¬ 
ing  to  bring  light  among  the  shadows. 

She  ceased  speaking  and  they  sat  in  silence 
for  a  long  time.  The  music  in  the  atrium  had 
given  place  to  a  murmur  of  contented  voices. 
The  storm  had  died  down.  Belated  moonlight 
strayed  in  and  fell  across  a  little  bird  in  the 
picture  of  Orpheus  playing  the  magic  music. 
A  thoughtful  young  slave,  who  had  been  allowed 
to  share  in  the  singing,  slipped  in  to  re¬ 
plenish  the  lamps.  Anna’s  face  had  grown 
serene  again.  She  clasped  her  hands  quickly  in 
a  young,  happy  gesture  that  her  friends  loved 
and  turned  to  Lucius  with  a  smile.  “Ah,  dear 
friend,”  she  said,  “he  is  a  great  man,  and  he 
is  our  leader  and  guide  and  teacher.  But  he, 
too,  needs  just  to  become  a  child  again.  That 
would  be  the  way  of  Jesus  Christ.” 


ALMOST  THOU  PERSUADEST  ME 


Hoxoria 

To  her  brother,  Sulpicius,  Greeting. 

I  have  some  good  news  to  send  yon  and  also 
an  extraordinary  personal  experience  to  tell  you 
about.  They  are  connected,  and  I  will  give  you 
the  news  first.  Felicia  and  Calpurnius  have 
straightened  out  their  difficulties  and  are  living 
the  sort  of  married  life  which  is  worthy  of  the 
family.  I  have  thought  so  often  lately  how 
happy  Mother  would  have  been  if  she  could 
have  seen  Felicia  conquering  a  difficulty  with 
dignity  and  self-control.  Calpurnius  has  been 
very  fine  on  his  side,  and  it  is  deeply  satisfying 
to  watch  their  restored  happiness  and  to  see 
the  adornment  that  it  is  to  their  outside  life. 
I  was  sorry  in  my  last  letter  to  give  you  such 
an  anxious  report  of  them,  and  I  feel  sure  that 

you  will  be  as  glad  as  I  am  to  know  that  they 

169 


170  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

are  living  once  more  in  a  reasonable  and  decent 
way. 

But  I  mustn’t  let  such  a  cold  phrase  end  my 
story !  I  think  I  used  that  sentence  to  show  you 
in  your  coldest  mood  how  real  this  improve¬ 
ment  is.  As  an  actual  fact,  I  could  astonish 
you  by  bursting  into  a  p^an  on  the  change 
that  seems  to  have  swept  over  Felicia’s  nature. 
She  no  longer  exhausts  Calpurnius  with  moods 
and  whims,  but  shows  something  of  Mother’s 
dignity  and  serenity  in  her  relations  with  him. 
And  then  there  is  added — how  shall  I  put  it  ? — a 
new  sort  of  gaiety  which  seems  to  bubble  out 
of  some  inner  spring  of  contentment.  It  is  a 
perfectly  charming  thing  to  see.  She  is  sweeter 
than  she  ever  was,  and  peculiarly  lovely  to  look 
at.  She  is  finer,  too,  as  a  mother.  You  know 
how  worried  I  have  been  over  my  little  Felicia, 
left  to  grow  carelessly  without  any  shaping 
hand.  Felicia  is  spending  more  time  with  her 
herself,  and  she  has  dismissed  the  clever  but 
rather  dangerous  young  attendant  whom  she 
had  for  her.  Instead,  she  has  secured  a  splen- 


ALMOST  THOU  PERSUADEST  ME  171 


did  governess,  a  distant  connection  of  Calpur- 
nius’s  Aunt  Victoria.  At  last  I  feel  completely 
satisfied  about  her  sense  of  responsibility  for 
her  child. 

Now,  how  do  you  suppose  this  happened? 
Dear  brother  of  mine,  it  is  a  great  comfort  to 
know  that  you  will  really  be  interested  in  what 
I  am  going  to  tell  you.  How  often,  across  lands 
and  seas,  your  thoughts  and  mine  have  flown 
toward  each  other!  I  wonder  if  you  think  as 
often  as  I  do  of  the  old  days  at  home  when 
Felicia  was  little  and  you  and  I  were  already 
growing  up,  and  of  how  Father  used  to  talk  to 
us  both  together  about  the  books  he  was  read¬ 
ing  and  the  things  he  was  thinking  about,  and 
then  we  would  discuss  it  all  over  again  from  our 
own  point  of  view  while  we  were  tramping 
around  the  country  at  Tusculum,  or  in  winter 
evenings  in  the  city  in  the  schoolroom,  when 
Mother  and  Father  were  out  for  dinner,  and 
we  had  got  rid  of  the  servants.  I  wonder  just 
what  mood  you  will  be  in  when  this  letter 
reaches  you,  oft  there  in  Egypt!  Will  it  be  im- 


172 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


penally  born  of  the  public  affairs  and  questions 
of  state  that  crowd  into  your  office?  Or  will 
it  be  keen-eyed  and  speculative,  springing  from 
a  stimulating  and  racy  hour  of  talk  with  your 
Greek  friends  ?  Or  wTill  you  be  a  bit  amused,  a 
bit  curious,  and  more  than  a  bit  meditative  be¬ 
cause  you  have  come  in  from  watching  the 
Egyptian  populace  at  some  public  religious 
ceremonial,  which  spells  truth  to  them  and  noth¬ 
ing  at  all  to  you?  Anyhow,  whatever  you  have 
been  doing,  send  your  mind  back  home  for  an 
hour!  Leave  the  Nile  and  float  on  the  Tiber. 
Forget  the  palm  trees,  and  remember  our  pines 
and  ilexes.  Forget  the  brilliant  and  unpreju¬ 
diced  Greek  ladies,  and  think  of  me  in  all  my 
Roman  bonds — incurably  the  moralist !  I  want 
to  write  to  you  intimately  of  an  intimate  thing, 
and  so  I  am  trying  to  tempt  you  back  into  our 
old  family  interchange  of  thought.  How  thank¬ 
ful  I  am  that  I  have  no  doubt  of  your  wanting 
to  meet  me ! 

Well,  I  was  going  to  tell  you  about  what 
changed  Felicia.  It  was  an  idea,  and  it  was  an 


ALMOST  THOU  PERSUADEST  ME  173 


idea  not  suggested  by  me  or  by  any  one  whom 
you  could  imagine.  In  fact,  sbe  rejected  every¬ 
thing  that  we  could  say  to  her.  Then  her  new 
little  maid,  Irene,  a  mere  servant,  a  girl  from 
their  Sabine  village,  said  this  thing  which  seems 
to  be  transforming  Felicia  from  an  undisci¬ 
plined,  foolish  girl  bent  on  disaster  into  a  tran¬ 
quil  and  beautiful  woman.  Irene  happened  to 
tell  her  one  day  about  a  new  religion  which  had 
shown  her  the  way  out  of  some  family  difficulties 
(I  suppose  they  have  them!) — the  religion  of  a 
certain  Jesus  Christ.  Irene  made  the  great 
point  that  its  chief  requirement  is  love,  and  she 
put  it  in  such  a  way  that  Felicia  impulsively 
acted  upon  it  and  became  reconciled  with  Cal- 
purnius  just  at  the  most  critical  moment  in  their 
relations.  What  struck  me  at  first  was  that  it 
was  so  like  Felicia  to  act  on  impulse !  The  re¬ 
sult  in  this  case,  I  thought  to  myself,  was  cer¬ 
tainly  excellent,  but  the  same  impulsiveness 
might  lead  her  astray  a  hundred  other  times. 
Then  little  by  little — for  I  have  waited  two 
months  before  telling  you — I  have  come  to  be- 


174  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

lieve  that  the  impulse,  whatever  it  was,  is  last¬ 
ing  on  and  is  shaping  Felicia’s  life  in  varied 
and  significant  ways.  Of  course,  the  swift 
reconciliation,  the  finding  out  that  she  and  Cal- 
purnius  really  were  lovers,  played  its  part  in 
the  experience.  Evidently  it  gave  Felicia  a  curi¬ 
ous  sort  of  confidence  in  Irene,  and  the  girl  cer¬ 
tainly  is  a  lovely  young  creature,  the  pure  charm 
of  whose  own  life  it  is  impossible  to  deny.  It 
seems  that,  through  Irene,  Felicia  has  come  to 
know  other  followers  of  this  new  faith.  They 
are  higher  up  than  Irene,— an  extraordinary 
democracy  prevails  among  them — but  by  no 
means  in  our  own  class.  However,  they  have 
made  a  great  impression  upon  Felicia,  especi¬ 
ally  one  older  woman  who  evidently  reaches  the 
child’s  heart  as  nobody  has  since  Mother  died. 
To  my  astonishment,  Felicia  has  succeeded  in 
interesting  Calpurnius  in  her  ideas.  He  has  not 
gone  with  her  to  any  of  the  Christian  meetings, 
but  he  is,  I  think,  sympathetic  with  her  lively 
interest  in  them. 

Felicia,  as  you  know,  has  nothing  of  the 


ALMOST  THOU  PERSUADEST  ME  175 

fanatic  in  her,  and  I  dcmbt  if  many  of  her  own 
set  will  ever  know  of  her  change  of  religion, 
whether  or  not  thev  notice  anv  change  in  her- 
self.  Religion  in  general  is  so  left  out  of  their 
scheme  of  life  that  they  don't  waste  anv  effort 

V  * 

in  questioning  each  other ’s !  And  F elicia  will 
always  live  pleasantly  and  charmingly  with  her 
social  group.  But  in  her  own  household,  where 
she  rules,  she  is  perfectly  definite,  and  Felicia, 
with  the  consent  of  Calpurnius,  is  being  trained 
in  the  “new  way.”  One  morning  I  found  her 
being  taught  a  little  prayer  which  ended  “for 
Jesus  Christ’s  sake.”  Perhaps  it  seems  less 
extraordinary  to  vou  than  it  did  at  the  time  to 
me.  I  know  that  life  in  the  East  has  given  you 
sympathy  with  differences  in  religious  belief, 
and  that  the  addition  of  one  more  form  of  wor¬ 
ship  or  another  would  not  surprise  you — even, 
possibly,  in  your  own  family.  I  was  so  much  in¬ 
terested  in  what  you  wrote  once,  during  your 
first  months  in  Egypt — that  living  close  to  an¬ 
other  religion  had  effectually  cured  you  of  tak¬ 
ing  your  own  for  granted,  and  had  indeed 


176 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


aroused  in  you  a  general  interest  in  religion 
which  you  did  not  know  you  possessed.  “If 
Isis,  then  why  Juno,  and  if  Juno,  then  why 
Isis?” 

Do  you  begin  to  see  that  I  am  feeling  for  a 
path  of  approach  to  your  mind  and  understand¬ 
ing?  I  warned  you  in  the  first  sentence  of  this 
letter  that  I  had  had  myself  an  extraordinary 
experience.  Now  I  must  gather  my  courage  and 
try  to  convey  it  to  you. 

Felicia  introduced  to  me  her  new  friend,  the 
older  woman  to  whom  I  referred.  This  Anna, 
with  her  son  Festus,  is  on  intimate  terms  with 
the  man  who  is  recognized  by  the  Christians 
as  their  leader.  This  man — it  is  like  a  list  of 
dramatis  personce,  isn’t  it !— this  protagonist,  so 
to  speak,  is  a  prisoner  of  the  Praetorian  Guards 
—a  Jew  sent  over  here  from  Jerusalem  because 
he  appealed  to  Caesar  when  his  own  people 
brought  him  to  trial  for  disturbing  the  peace 
with  a  new  set  of  ideas.  Now  Anna  made  a 
great  impression  on  me  and  what  she  told  me 
about  this  Paul  made  a  great  impression,  and 


ALMOST  THOU  PERSUADEST  ME  177 

I  decided  to  go  and  talk  directly  with  him.  The 
Imperial  Government  seems  to  he  very  liberal 
with  him,  Burrus  makes  no  objections  to  his 
receiving  visitors  in  his  lodging  at  any  time. 
I  went  this  afternoon  quite  alone — you  can 
imagine  how  horrified  old  Davus  was  when  I 
gave  him  the  address  and  how  grieved  he  was 
when  I  made  him  stay  outside  with  the  other 
servants !  Also,  by  what  I  understand  was  un¬ 
usual  good  fortune,  I  found  Paul  alone  except 
for  the  guard  to  whom  he  was  linked.  A  group 
of  Jews,  leaving  just  as  I  came,  were  gesticulat¬ 
ing  and  talking  with  apparent  violence  as  they 
came  through  the  door.  I  felt  curiously  isolated 
from  every  other  fact  of  my  life  when  I  walked 
alone  into  a  prisoner’s  room,  in  order  to  talk 
fundamentals  with  a  man  of  whom  I  knew  so 
little  and  who  knew  of  me  absolutely  nothing.  It 
was  as  if  his  bonds  insured  my  freedom.  He 
was  still  standing,  having  just  said  “ good-bye” 
to  his  other  visitors,  and  he  asked  me  courte¬ 
ously  to  sit  down  when  I  told  him  that  I  was 
a  Roman  woman  who  wanted  to  talk  with  him 


178  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

about  the  religion  that  he  was  preaching;  I  did 
not  nse  Anna’s  name,  because  I  wanted  to  pre¬ 
serve  for  myself  the  unique  separateness  of  my 
act.  In  arranging  our  chairs  he  was  very  con¬ 
siderate  of  the  young  soldier  fastened  to  him, 
and  I  noticed  that  the  boy’s  eyes  watched  him 
with  devotion.  We  talked  in  Greek,  of  course. 
He  speaks  it  absolutely  without  accent,  and 
much  more  idiomatically  than  I  do.  I  wish  that 
I  could  describe  the  man  to  you !  I  shall  never 
forget  him  so  long  as  I  live.  He  is  thin,  and 
does  not  seem  robust  physically,  but  his  body 
betrays  constantly  an  active,  nervous  energy. 
He  is  slightly  bald  and  has  a  long,  pointed  beard. 
His  face  has  in  it  a  curious  power.  His  nose 
is  characteristically  Jewish,  but  somehow  gives 
a  sort  of  massive  strength  to  the  head.  The 
eyes  are  deep  set,  under  close  and  prominent 
eyebrows,  very  penetrating,  very  full  of  light 
and  fire,  in  spite  of  a  certain  sorrow  which 
seems  to  be  ambushed  in  them.  His  voice  is 
cultivated,  and  I  soon  made  up  my  mind  that 
his  friend  was  right  in  telling  me  that  he  was 


ALMOST  THOU  PERSUADEST  ME  179 

a  scholar  and  thinker.  It  was  indeed  on  that 
basis  that  I  opened  the  talk.  It  would  not  have 
been  fair  to  let  him  think  for  a  moment  that  I 
was  laden  with  a  secret  trouble  as  I  imagine 
many  must  be  who  come  to  him.  Telling  him 
frankly  what  had  interested  me  in  his  new  ideas, 
I  asked  him  if  he  would  explain  them  to  me  more 
in  detail. 

Nobody  came  to  interrupt  us  for  almost  an 
hour,  and  I  shall  always  count  that  hour  as  the 
intensest  one  of  my  life.  I  said  things  to  him 
that  I  have  never  said  even  to  you,  in  that 
amazing  mental  intimacy  at  which  people  do 
sometimes  snatch  who  know  nothing  personal 
or  dividing  about  each  other,  and  who  will  never 
have  to  face  each  other  embarrassed  by  the 
memory  of  a  naked  confidence. 

I  cleared  the  decks  at  once  by  explaining  that 
the  religion  of  the  people  was  nothing  to  me 
and  that  in  philosophy  I  was  more  or  less  of 
an  eclectic,  with  both  temperamental  and  rea¬ 
soned  leanings  toward  the  Stoa.  And  then  we 
talked — yes,  I  suppose  we  talked — about  Stoic- 


180  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

ism  and  Epicureanism,  and  his  own  Christian¬ 
ity,  and  the  Isis  worship,  and  the  cult  of  Cybele 
••  -  certainly  these  names  and  many  others  passed 
and  repassed  between  us.  But  as  we  went  on 
I  became  conscious  of  a  pulsing  something,  a 
vital  breath,  like  a  wind  rising  on  the  languid 
air,  a  stir  and  rush  of  thought.  The  matter 
was  no  longer  in  my  own  hands.  Through  the 
intellectual  discussion  which  I  had  started 
pierced  the  realization  that  this  man  had  no 
time  for  the  husk,  the  rind,  the  cramping  cover 
of  ideas.  He  had  accepted  my  terms  at  first 
merely  for  the  sake  of  reaching  my  mind  with 
a  ray  of  the  new  light  which,  like  some  un¬ 
dreamed-of  primal  element,  has  created  for  him 
—the  words  are  his  own — a  new  earth  and  a 
new  heaven. 

I  have  heaped  up  my  figures  of  speech  in 
seeking  to  convey  to  you  an  impression.  But 
it  is  the  figure  of  light  that  I  must  leave  in  your 
imagination!  Paul  himself  used  it  constantly, 
as  if  seeking  to  cleave  an  obscurant  sky.  Viv¬ 
idly,  at  every  turn,  he  made  the  contrast  be- 


ALMOST  THOU  PERSUADEST  ME  181 

tween  darkness  and  light.  The  contrasts  in¬ 
sisted  upon  by  onr  systems  of  thought  have  al¬ 
ways  interested  me.  The  established  religion 
calls  us  pious  or  impious,  the  Stoics  call  us  sages 
or  fools.  The  Epicureans  set  us  off  as  dupes  of 
religion  or  freedmen  of  science.  Demetrius  only 
lately  happened  to  say  to  me  that  he  sees  men 
as  slaves  of  ease  or  masters  of  hardship.  We 
were  dining  at  Seneca ’s — if  you  call  it  dining 
for  a  man  who  eats  only  dry  bread  at  our  Roman 
tables — and  the  two  young  poets,  Lucan  and 
Persius,  had  rushed  in  with  news  from  the 
races,  dividing  us  at  once  into  Greens  and  Reds. 
Hence  the  crumb  from  the  Cynic’s  loaf.  And 
so  on  and  on — each  system  has  its  own  meas¬ 
ure  of  division.  But  this  man  I  was  talking 
with,  this  prisoner  bound  to  one  of  our  sol¬ 
diers,  was  visioning  on  the  one  side  a  whole 
world  in  darkness  and  on  the  other  the  illumi¬ 
nated  ones,  the  children  of  light,  who  recognized 
a  new  law  of  Love.  Darkness  and  light,  dark¬ 
ness  and  light — these  words  he  used  over  and 
over,  until  a  strange  sensation  befell  me.  I 


182 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


seemed  to  see  myself  coming  down,  down 
through  long  and  dusky  corridors  of  thought, 
to  find  at  the  end  the  open  sky  and  wide  sunlit 
spaces,  and  the  radiance  and  freshness  of  a  day 
that  would  never  die. 

But  I  must  leave  my  sensations  and  try  more 
intelligibly  to  pass  on  to  you  the  ideas  that 
emerged  from  the  conversation.  This,  how¬ 
ever,  will  be  a  difficult  thing  to  do  because  the 
ideas  for  Paul  focused  and  centred  in  a  per¬ 
son,  to  me  unknown  and  even  incomprehensible. 
The  person  is  little  Irene’s  Jesus  Christ — as¬ 
suming  heroic  proportions  when  he  is  reflected 
through  a  brain  like  Paul’s.  Do  you  ask  me  if 
he  is  a  god,  like  Osiris,  like  Isis,  springing  from 
the  East  and  appearing  in  Rome?  I  lightly  as¬ 
sumed  that  when  I  first  heard  of  him — I  was 
patient  with  Felicia  only  because  the  results  of 
a  new  cult  were  so  delightful.  Anna,  however, 
gave  me  the  impression  of  worshiping  in  hu¬ 
man  terms  the  remembered  life  of  a  man  so  good 
and  so  richly  endowed  with  personality  that  he 
became  for  others  a  norm  and  an  inspiration. 


ALMOST  THOU  PERSUADEST  ME  183 

I  remember  once  hearing  Seneca  say  that  one  of 
the  most  practical  ways  of  living  well  was  to 
pick  out  a  master — Cato,  for  example,  if  you 
liked  an  austere  one,  or  some  gentler  Laelius — 
and  follow  him.  Choose  one,  he  said,  whose  own 
life  has  satisfied  you  and  then  picture  him  al¬ 
ways  to  yourself  as  guide  and  as  pattern.  “  You 
can  never  straighten  a  crooked  thing  ” — his 
vivid  phrase  stayed  by  me — “  unless  you  use  a 
ruler.’ ’  Anna  seemed  to  me  to  have  found  in 
Jesus  the  sort  of  “ ruler”  recommended  by  our 
arch-Stoic.  This  is  amazing  when  you  consider 
the  quite  uninteresting  facts  of  his  life  as  they 
give  them  to  you.  He  was  a  common  workman 
who  lived  some  thirty  years  ago  in  Palestine. 
He  evidently  had  a  religious  mission  and  native 
powers  of  persuasion,  because,  when  he  could 
get  time  from  his  work,  he  went  about  from  vil¬ 
lage  to  village,  acquiring  a  following  among  the 
lower  classes.  But  his  ideas  were  obnoxious  to 
the  authorities — revolutionary,  I  imagine — and 
after  a  while  they  crucified  him  in  Jerusalem  as 
a  dangerous  character.  Whether  he  was  an  agi- 


184 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


tator  or  not,  he  seems  to  have  made  upon  his 
immediate  friends  and  followers  an  indelible 
impression  which  they  have  passed  on  to  those 
who  never  saw  him. 

To  me,  as  you  will  readily  understand,  all  this 
did  not  seem  particularly  interesting — perhaps 
I  am  too  cold  for  hero  worship,  too  indifferent 
to  personal  judgments  to  put  my  mind,  however 
inferior,  into  any  one’s  keeping.  Seneca’s 
advice  caught  my  attention  without  persuading 
me.  I  have  always  yielded  more  easily  to  ab¬ 
stractions  and  principles  of  thought  than  to 
their  exemplification,  usually  so  inadequate,  in 
some  specific  personality.  So  I  had  dismissed 
Anna’s  feeling  for  Jesus  about  as  lightly  as  I 
dismissed  Irene’s. 

But  with  Paul  I  had  no  choice,  in  that  hour 
which  he  dominated.  I  received  an  extraor¬ 
dinary  impression,  connected  with  that  other 
impression  of  which  I  just  spoke.  It  was  as  if, 
whenever  and  wherever  I  emerged  from  dark¬ 
ness,  I  found  a  Person  clothed  in  light,  from 
whose  touch  sprang  the  radiant  and  immortal 


ALMOST  THOU  PERSUADEST  ME  185 


day.  At  any  rate  (for  I  must  rein  myself  in 
with  terms  comprehensible  to  you),  I  recog¬ 
nized  that  this  Jesus  becomes  the  central  point 
of  all  that  Paul  teaches.  Just  how  far  he  is  to 
him  a  master  in  Seneca’s  sense,  or  a  divine 
personage,  was  not  clear  to  me.  Sometimes 
I  thought  he  was  talking  of  a  personal 
friend,  sometimes  of  an  idea,  according  to 
Plato’s  use  of  the  word.  Certainly  every 
question  of  mine  led  to  Jesus  Christ.  As 
far  as  I  can  make  out,  on  thinking  it  over,  the 
two  words  taken  together  indicate  the  Person¬ 
ality  which,  in  Paul’s  thought,  animates  all  laws 
and  principles  of  life.  The  ‘Jaw  of  love,”  the 
“law  of  spirit” — whatever  law  emerged  in  our 
conversation — was  transformed  from  an  ab¬ 
straction  into  an  issue  of  man’s  highest  person¬ 
ality.  I  am  sure  there  is  a  Platonic  strain  in 
it  somewhere,  as  if  among  the  Ideas  laid  up  in 
heaven  were  that  of  a  perfect  humanity,  made 
known  to  consciousness,  and  hence  usable  as 
a  pattern,  under  a  specific  name.  The  transi¬ 
tion  from  the  good  carpenter  in  Palestine,  whom 


186 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


Paul  had  only  heard  of,  to  an  all-animating  Per¬ 
sonality  seems  to  have  been  made  by  way  of  a 
resurrection  after  crucifixion.  This  whole  mat¬ 
ter,  however,  is  obscure  to  me.  The  particular 
story  is  absurd  on  the  face  of  it.  Yet  Paul  re¬ 
iterated  that  he  preached  “ Jesus”  crucified, 
and  also  that  if  4  ‘  Christ  ’ ’  had  not  risen  from  the 
grave,  then  all  his  preaching  was  in  vain.  I 
cannot  tell  you  what  he  meant.  I  have  no  idea 
now,  nor  had  I  then.  Only  then — then — and  this 
was  another  strange  part  of  that  strange  hour’s 
experience — I  was  burned  by  the  man’s  eyes, 
set  astir  by  his  voice,  shaken  by  a  passion  that 
sheathed  him  like  a  flame,  swept  onward  by 
gusts  of  thought  that  seemed  to  rise,  with  the 
roar  of  wings,  from  the  recesses  of  life  itself. 

But  you  know  me  well  enough  to  know  that 
this  vicarious  emotion  of  mine  was  momentary. 
The  gusts  passed,  leaving  me  still  in  pursuit  of 
a  clear  path  of  understanding.  And  it  was  in 
this  quieter  mood  that  I  received  my  final  im¬ 
pressions  from  Paul.  It  is  because  of  them  that 
I  am  writing  to  you  at  all.  As  we  talked  on  I 


ALMOST  THOU  PERSUADEST  ME  187 

saw  that  much  that  these  Christians  teach  is  old 
and  familiar.  Monotheism,  certainly,  is  philo¬ 
sophically  assumed  by  most  of  us,  in  spite  of  the 
motley  forms  of  our  apparent  religion.  Also 
the  assumption  of  an  Eternal  Purpose  behind 
all  phenomena  is  good  Stoic  dogma.  As  for 
“kindness’ ’  to  people  about  you — why,  you  re¬ 
member  the  Stoic  phrase  Mother  liked  so  much 
— “for  mortal  to  help  mortal,  that  is  God.” 
Socrates  in  prison  for  conscience’  sake  four 
hundred  years  ago  was  just  as  considerate  to¬ 
ward  his  jailer  as  this  prisoner  seems  to  be. 
The  immortality  of  the  soul — when  hasn ’t  some¬ 
body  believed  in  it !  I  confess  I  don’t,  but  Plato 
seems  to  have  convinced  himself  of  the  proposi¬ 
tion!  All  kinds  of  virtues — courage,  honesty, 
temperance,  faithfulness  to  duty — certainly  we 
Romans  don’t  need  to  be  taught  these  things 
from  Jerusalem.  Even  the  curious  mystical 
idea  that  Paul  seemed  once  to  suggest,  of  a 
divine  person  dying  to  save  others  as  a  sort  of 
atonement,  is  not  new.  I  found  that  long  ago 
in  my  Greek  studies,  and  I  remember  that  you 


188 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 


wrote  of  it  once  in  commenting  on  the  Isis  wor¬ 
ship.  Over  against  all  yonr  Oriental  cults,  how¬ 
ever,  and  over  against  Hellenic  Orphism,  Paul’s 
religion,  as  he  explained  it,  seemed  to  me  to 
have  an  especially  fine  element.  Whatever  it 
is,  it  is  not  a  doctrine  only  for  initiates  while 
others  are  left  outside.  I  liked  the  value  that 
Paul  assigned  to  every  single  individual.  He 
said  it  was  a  corollary  of  the  fact  that  Jesus 
Christ  died  for  and  saved  the  meanest  as  well 
as  the  highest.  At  any  rate,  I  liked  the  clean 
breath  of  it  all,  the  sweeping  away  of  secrets, 
the  free  passage  of  the  ‘Tight,”  to  every  man, 
woman,  and  child,  rich  or  poor,  learned  or 
ignorant. 

But  I  was  speaking  of  the  familiarity,  in  one 
form  or  another,  of  many  of  the  specific  things 
mentioned  by  Paul.  And  yet,  Sulpicius,  little 
by  little  the  conviction  grew  upon  me  that  here 
was  a  way  of  thinking  and  a  way  of  acting  stu¬ 
pendously  new.  I  had  a  vision  of  a  city  different 
from  Plato’s  or  Zeno’s  or  any  other,  fresh  as  a 
new  planet  dawning  upon  our  eyes.  It  seemed 


ALMOST  THOU  PERSUADEST  ME  189 

radiant  with  new  things — with  the  new  man,  the 
new  law,  the  new  hope,  the  new  joy,  the  new 
fruits  of  a  new  spirit.  These  words  dropped 
constantly  from  the  lips  of  Paul.  I  began  to 
yield  to  them.  I  felt  as  if  I  were  casting  off  one 
old  garment  after  another,  and  would  in  the  end 
find  myself  face  to  face  with  a  new  self  living  a 
new  life. 

Life — life,  that,  Sulpicius,  is  the  word  that 
took  root  in  me  that  day,  and  may — who  knows  ? 
• — come  to  flower.  Every  Christian  I  have  met 
seems  to  me  to  be  amazingly  alive.  Vitality  is 
their  common  possession.  Even  Irene  has  it, 
in  a  young  and  gentle  way.  It  ripples  through 
her  like  a  little  brook.  In  Felicia  it  is  like  a 
new  fountain  opened  up  to  flood  a  shallow  pool. 
In  Anna  this  stream  swells  to  a  deep  and  tran¬ 
quil  river.  In  Paul  it  surges  and  engulfs  like 
a  mighty  torrent.  As  far  as  I  can  make  out, 
they  have  this  life  because  they  draw  it  out  of 
eternal  things  and  conceive  it  to  flow  on  toward 
eternal  things.  They  themselves  would  say  that 
it  springs  from  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  seeks 


190  CHILDREN  OF  THE  WAY 

God  in  J esus  Christ.  They  all — except  Paul,  of 
course,  who  sits  there  apart  in  forced  inaction — 
they  all  keep  right  on  living  the  littlest  sort  of 
everyday  life.  But  I  think  that  they  live  it  in 
the  presence  of  God  and  of  eternity.  I  am 
aware  that  philosophers  have  preached  some 
such  sort  of  abstraction  as  this,  hut  I  must  con¬ 
fess  to  you  that  I  have  never  before  in  my  whole 
life  seen  one  individual,  not  even  Mother,  who 
was  doing  it  as  these  Christians  are.  They  seem 
set  free  from  every  inhibition,  as  if  an  inex¬ 
haustible  power  were  there  to  draw  upon,  in 
proportion  to  the  size  of  the  cup  that  nature 
permits  them  to  hold  at  the  fountain’s  source. 

It  is  late,  and  I  have  written  this  with  my 
own  hand.  The  lamp — the  bronze  one  with  the 
doves  on  it — do  you  remember? — burns  low. 
Are  you  close  to  me  in  the  shadows  of  the  room, 
heart  of  my  heart,  or  have  I  long  since  driven 
you  away?  Do  you  question  me?  No,  I  am  not 
going  to  tell  you  that  I  have  become  a  Christian. 
I  shall  never  go  with  Felicia  to  Christian  homes 
and  meetings.  I  fancy  I  could  not  stand  their 


ALMOST  THOU  PERSUADEST  ME  191 

words.  Nor  shall  I  go  back  to  Paul.  But  I 
have  seen  a  star  rising  in  the  darkness ;  I  have 
seen  a  fountain  gushing  in  the  sunlight.  Good¬ 
bye,  and  may  all  good  things  be  yours.  Felicia 
and  Calpurnius  spoke  of  you  especially  this 
morning  and  sent  their  affectionate  greetings. 
Felicia  wants  you  to  come  home  soon,  and  bring 
her  an  ivory  doll,  and  a  baby  crocodile — please ! 


EPILOGUE 


Because  the  men  and  women  and  children  of 
whom  I  have  written  are  my  friends,  I  am  glad 
not  to  look  ahead  even  by  a  little  to  the  tragic 
days  of  the  great  fire  in  Rome  when  some  of 
them,  victims  of  falsehood,  must  glut  the  venge¬ 
ance  of  a  mad  Emperor.  And  yet  I  realize 
that  the  tranquil  safety  in  which  I  leave  them 
would  not  have  fulfilled  their  own  most  pas¬ 
sionate  desires.  Any  of  them  who  survived  per¬ 
secution,  and  from  the  vantage  point  of  old  age 
looked  back  upon  their  fellows  for  whom  the 
Way  led  to  an  early  death,  must  have  agreed 
with  Ignatius  when  he  wrote  from  Smyrna  to 
them  and  other  Christians  in  Rome,  where  he 
anticipated  his  own  martyrdom:  “Christianity 
is  not  the  work  of  persuasiveness,  but  of  great¬ 
ness,  when  it  is  hated  by  the  world.  ” 

A.  C.  E.  A. 


193 


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